Chapter 18

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Negan's motorcycle slammed into the front rank of the Infected. Negan's right arm rose and fell, rose and fell, slamming the brutal edge of the hardwood bat down into faces and hands and necks and shoulders. The dead reached for him, but he kicked with his foot and swirled his bike back to drive away and wait for more to come at him, and struck and struck and struck and struck. Jaws shattered, skulls cracked, and then they are at the stalled card.

Negan wheeled around and tugged back on the bike to rear his bike and crush the bodies before him. Negan's carpet chaos protected his legs, but he wasn't wearing his carpet coat. If he fell, or if the creatures grabbed a wrist, then only the last bits of the cadaverine and his leather jacket would protect him.

"Where the fuck are you guys?" Negan yelled, and surged forward toward another line of the dead. Beyond that was open ground. The bat rose and fell, and Negan felt the shock tremble up his arm.

He slammed through the second line, and one hand snagged in his pants cuff and nearly tore him from the bike. Negan slewed halfway around and slashed backward at the clutching hand, feeling the forearm bones break as he struck down.

Where the fuckity shit is his Saviors? When he called, Negan knows his radio works and the Saviors are only less than ten minutes away in the forest. Negan jerked the handle to one side and smashed aside more of the dead.

He caught movement to one side and saw a man- a man, not a Infected or a Savior- entering the tree line on the far side of the road.

Whoever the fellow is, he or she set off the dynamite. A second sooner, and the blast would have dropped halt the trees on Negan. It was planned, let Negan be trapped by the herd of Infected. Maybe there's more of them and they took down his people. Negan had too much to think on the outcomes.

A Infected lurched into his path, so Negan swung the bat. Brittle bones made a sickening sound as the bat crushed them.

Two others, a fireman and a man wearing only boxer shorts, closed in on him, blocking his way. Negan steered just slightly to the left as he slashed down to the right, hitting the fireman on the side of the head and knocking him into the other man. They fell in a tangle of pale limbs.

As he crested the last of a series of rolling hills, Negan felt his blood freeze. The road beyond was shallow, no more than a dozen feet deep at the end of a long, gradual slope. He could easily make the run, but he needs to lead the herd away. And he can't keep fighting and bashing his bike at the Infected, the flesh will jam the wheels and the engine.

Something burned through the air an inch from his nose, and for a moment he had the crazy notion that it was a bee or wasp. Then, almost like an afterthought, the crack of a gunshot echoed across the plain.

Negan turned toward the sound and saw bullets seat the air and hitting every Infected's head. Fifty feet away every Infected spun and fell, a black hole punched through its head. Then out of the forest, men- Saviors- stepped to the top of the road and shoot more fires of their guns. Negan turned and looked back the road. There was no sign of the figure, but for a moment- perhaps it was his imagination or the shimmer of the heat or even a wandering Infected- but Negan thought the man wore a white suit, like it had armory. He went fast down into the forest, and he carried something in its hand that glinted like steel.

Without a second, the gunfire stops. The road line was covered with the living dead- thousands or less of them- dead, laying on top of each other, and blocked the road.

They were safe.

But Negan needed to find the figure.

And they could not follow.

-:-:-:-:-

Bitter, exhausted, and angry, the Saviors carried the lifeless up in the box trunks to take them to the Pit Fire. For several long minutes, the road was still blocked and Negan knew the job is long and tedious.

"Are you okay, boss?" Matt asked.

"No." Negan groaned, wishing he can have a smoke right now.

Matt turned his head so sharply that it looked like it was unscrewing from his shoulders. "Where are you hurt? We can-"

"I'm not fucking hurt, I'm... sorry, kid. Someone knew we were coming," He said. "They knew long before now. You can't rig charged like that and bring down so much shit without taking time to set it up. They set up a fucking good trap.

Matt handed Negan a water and he drank deeply.

"You sure you're okay?" Matt asked, peering curiously at him.

"I'm fine," snapped Negan. "There was someone up the road. I'm going to follow, see who we are going to fuck with."

"But boss- should we-"

"No. You guys stay here to clean the mess. Besides, the dynamite was a big bang, big enough to draw more of the dead toward the pass. I'll be gone for an hour and I'll head back home. Will inform when I'm back."

"Should we inform Mal-"

"No," Negan said, and his face was tight. "Let's keep that long until I get back home."

He drove northeast, then headed down to the almost completely relentless road that ended by a curve in a frozen creek. Everything was still. He came up to a highway that was entirely blocked by card. Four lanes and both shoulders, stretching a mile around the bend. It was from Fairview's work (Vix and Tom suggested this idea to keep some Infected off any trade routes.) All cars have wooden spikes all around the structure, and a few Infected are alive, chained on the car to draw away the scent. Some cars are smashed together. A few had rolled off the highway and lay half hidden in the tall snow beside the road.

A bird cawed, and Negan turned to see a raven perched on the broken bane of a Mercury Sable car.

In the cleft formed by the two vehicles, there was a shadier spot big enough for Negan and his motorcycle. He dismounted, and parked the motorcycle. He drew his gun to have his eyes and ears open, just in case. But Negan hadn't gone a dozen steps before he suddenly stopped and crouched. On the ground ten feet away, there was a large footprint in the snow.

At that same moment, Negan heard a strange sound behind and above him, and he turned and looked up as something weirdly disconnected to his present circumstances sailed through the cold air and landed on the blacktop just outside his shelter of wrecked and protected vehicles. It struck the ground, a long red rod, and laid there, twisting and hissing and smoking. Firecrackers.

As the first of the firecrackers began to explode, Negan's surprise evaporated, and he caught up with everything. The explosion, the figure, the carefully placed footprint. They weren't accidents, they weren't clues. They were out there deliberately. To stall him, to draw his focus.

The firecrackers banged and banged, and the echoes bounced off every car and rolled out into the field of snow and the white forest behind him. The barrage of bangs was so incredibly loud in the still air. Loud enough to walk the dead. Or at least call them.

Almost at once Negan saw moment in the trees and in the snow covered road. Dark, slow shapes detached themselves from crevices between smashed cars or tottered out from the dappled depths of the woods.

Behind Negan, he walked into another shithole.

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