The smell was the first thing that hit them—a thick, humid stench of stagnant water, rot, and old waste. It was a physical weight that seemed to coat the back of Ken's throat. Rick had tossed the key to the rooftop door to T-Dog, leaving Merle screaming into the wind, and the group had retreated into the belly of the department store to find the maintenance hatch.
"I'll go first," Ken said, his voice echoing slightly in the narrow service tunnel.
"Ken, you're just a—" Andrea started, but she caught herself, remembering how he'd stopped her hand on the showroom floor.
"I'm the one who's fast enough to clear the way," Ken countered. He didn't wait for an argument. He slid down the rusted iron ladder, his boots splashing into six inches of grey, murky water.
The sewers were a labyrinth of concrete pipes and narrow catwalks. The only light came from the scattered beams of their flashlights, cutting through the gloom like searchlights in a fog. Ken led the vanguard, his Glock in his right hand and the heavy maglite in his left. Behind him, Rick kept a steady pace, followed by Glenn, T-Dog, Morales, and a trembling Andrea.
"Stay five paces back," Ken whispered. "If I stop, you stop."
They hadn't gone fifty yards before the first shadow emerged from the darkness of a side-pipe. It was a walker, or what was left of one. The moisture had bloated its skin until it looked like wet grey leather, and its hair hung in mossy clumps. It let out a gurgling hiss, the sound muffled by the water in its throat.
Ken didn't waste a bullet. He stepped forward, using the heavy head of the maglite as a mace. He swung with the precision of a man who had practiced his forms a thousand times. The light connected with the walker's temple with a wet thud. As the creature stumbled, Ken stepped behind it and drove his knife into the base of its skull.
He lowered the body into the water silently.
"Clear," he breathed.
"God, kid," Morales whispered, his voice shaking. "You're like a machine."
Ken didn't respond. He couldn't tell them that in his "other" life, he had cleared compounds in the dead of night where the stakes were far higher than a single, slow-moving corpse. He just kept moving.
Over the next twenty minutes, Ken took down four more of the "sewer-dwellers." He moved with a predatory grace that fascinated and terrified the group. He was a teenage shadow, a ghost in tactical fatigues, clearing a path through the underworld. Every time a walker emerged, Ken was there—a quick strike, a muffled splash, and the way was open again.
The tunnel began to slope upward, and the air grew slightly fresher, but their progress came to a grinding halt.
"No," Glenn groaned, his flashlight beam hitting a wall of rusted iron.
A heavy gate of thick steel bars blocked the entire diameter of the tunnel. It was designed to catch large debris during floods, and it was held in place by massive bolts set deep into the concrete. Behind the bars, the tunnel continued, but there was no door, no latch, and no way around.
"It's a dead end," Andrea said, her voice rising in panic. "We have to go back. We have to go back to the roof!"
"We go back, we're trapped," T-Dog said, leaning against the damp wall. "The walkers probably broke through the glass by now. We go back, we die."
Rick stepped up to the bars, pulling at them with all his might. They didn't even vibrate. "They're solid. We'd need a blowtorch or a sledgehammer."
Ken walked up to the gate, his grey eyes scanning the architecture. He didn't look at the bars; he looked at the points of failure. He saw the bolts, orange with decades of oxidation. He saw the way the concrete around the hinges had begun to crack and "spall" due to the constant moisture.
"We don't need a hammer," Ken said. He looked at Rick. "We need leverage."
Ken looked around the debris-strewn tunnel. He spotted a long, rusted steel pipe that had fallen from a ceiling bracket. He hauled it over—it was about six feet long and heavy.
"Rick, T-Dog, get over here," Ken commanded.
He wedged the end of the pipe into the gap between the gate and the concrete wall, right next to the primary hinge.
"On my count, we all lean on this. We aren't trying to break the bars. We're trying to pop the bolt out of the rotted concrete. Use your weight, not just your arms."
Ken positioned himself at the end of the pipe, his feet braced against a protruding brick. Rick and T-Dog lined up behind him.
"One... two... THREE!"
They surged forward. The steel pipe groaned, bending slightly under the pressure of three men—and one boy with the soul of a grunt. For a second, nothing happened. Then, a sharp crack echoed through the tunnel, like a pistol shot.
"Again!" Ken yelled. "Push!"
With a sickening screech of grinding stone, the top bolt gave way, showering them with dust and mortar. The gate sagged.
"One more! All you got!"
They gave a final, desperate heave. The bottom hinge tore free from the wall, and the heavy iron gate collapsed into the muck with a thunderous splash that echoed for miles.
"Move! Move! Move!" Ken ushered them through the gap, his eyes scanning the dark tunnel they had just opened.
The tunnel narrowed until they were forced to crouch. The smell of diesel and hot asphalt began to override the scent of the sewers. Ken saw a shaft of light piercing the gloom from above—a manhole cover.
"Glenn, give me a boost," Ken said.
He climbed onto Glenn's shoulders and pressed his back against the heavy iron lid. He pushed, but it didn't budge.
"Rick, help me!"
Rick climbed up alongside them, and together, they heaved. The manhole cover slid aside with a grinding metallic scrape, revealing a circle of blue sky that looked like the most beautiful thing Ken had ever seen.
Ken hauled himself up first, his Glock drawn. He rolled onto the pavement, performing a quick 360-degree scan.
They were in a side street, roughly a block and a half away from the department store. To their left, they could see the massive, roiling horde of walkers surrounding the building they had just escaped. The sound was a low, constant roar of thousands of moans and the shattering of glass.
"It's clear! Get up here!" Ken whispered down the hole.
One by one, the group scrambled out of the darkness. They stood on the cracked asphalt, blinking in the harsh afternoon sun, covered in sewer grime and smelling like death. They were exhausted, terrified, but they were out.
Andrea looked back at the department store, then at Ken. She didn't say anything, but the look of hostility in her eyes had been replaced by a wary, burgeoning respect.
"We're a block away," Glenn whispered, checking his bearings. "The construction site where I parked the truck is just two streets over. If we can get there without drawing the horde..."
"We stay in the shadows," Ken said, wiping a smear of grey sludge from his cheek. He looked at Rick, who was staring at the distant horde with a haunted expression.
"Rick," Ken said firmly. "We did it. We're out."
Rick turned to him, a small, weary smile breaking through his grime-streaked face. "You're a hell of a soldier, Ken. Your father taught you well."
Ken looked away, his conscience pricking him for the lie, but he pushed it down. He looked toward the construction site. He knew the truck was there. He knew they were going to make it to the camp. And he knew that the man he had lied to was finally going to see his family again.
"Let's get to the truck," Ken said, his grey eyes scanning the road. "We've got a long drive ahead of us."
As they began to jog toward their exit, Ken felt the weight of the Glock in his hand. He was eighteen, he was in a nightmare, and he was surrounded by people who were just beginning to realize the world was over. But as he led them through the outskirts of the dead city, Ken felt a grim sense of satisfaction.
He was changing the story. One block at a time.