The smoke rose from the towers, thick and black. The air was filled with the growls of the biters, growing louder as more approached the prison from the noise of gunfire. Philip Blake could barely see out of his swollen eye, the other one lost to him months ago. But, what he could make out was the grimy, bloody former-sheriff standing over him, gun in hand. So this is how I die, he thought. It wasn't how he thought he would go, not since this whole thing started.
In the beginning, he had thought he would die protecting his daughter. She had been his number one priority but, when he lost her, he learned that he was his only priority. It was the sole thing driving him to do all that he did. He needed to survive. But now, beaten and broken in the dying grass, he had a feeling he wasn't going to survive. All that effort, wasted. I should have died with Penny, he thought as he heard the click of a safety being released.
"Rick, don't!" It was the quiet drawl of Hershel Greene, that much he could tell. His head was swimming, he felt like he was going to pass out but he fought the urge. Glad I didn't chop your head off.
"Don't?" Rick spat. He swept his arm over the carnage and rubble, the broken bodies and crushed fences. "Look what he's done. Remember what he's done in the past. He almost strangled me. He almost killed you!"
"For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." Hershel quoted. I'm to be saved by a faith I lost long ago. "No one's truly lost, Rick. Let's take him with us, take him prisoner. He's still a person."
"A poor excuse if I ever saw one." Michonne said cruelly. She had her katana pointed at Philip's throat.
"Michonne," The old man warned. "Tie him…"
The soft voice of the crippled man was cut off by the roar of an engine. Philip turned to see a Woodbury bus barreling toward them, a motorbike following in its cloud of dust. They both stopped and a dirty man and girl ran toward them from the bike: Daryl and Tara. Tara walked past Rick, Michonne, and Hershel and smacked Philip so hard across the face he actually saw stars — he always thought that was just a saying.
"How could you? This was a slaughter!" She screamed, drawing the attention of more biters to them.
"I…" He began.
"Doesn't matter. Should've never agreed to this." Tara said, crossing her arms over her chest. "I have to find my sister."
Tyreese jumped off the bus and said, "We gotta go. We're about to be overrun."
Rick took a moment then looked down at Philip still lying on the ground, now rubbing his jaw from Tara's slap. He looked at Tyreese and said, "Help me with him."
"What?"
"I said, help me with him." Rick repeated.
"We're taking the Governor?" He asked, staring at the man he knew to be insane. Rick nodded. Shaking his head in disbelief, Tyreese said, "It's your call, boss." Rick and Tyreese each grabbed Philip by an arm and hauled him to his feet. He was unsteady but managed to stand. They pulled him toward the bus, half dragging him because he wasn't cooperating.
Screams came from below, where the fences used to be. Philip whipped his head and nearly passed out from the rush that came over him. He knew those screams. He took off, running as best he could, Tara sprinting past him toward her helpless family. A piercing pain in his leg caused him to tumble to the ground. He hadn't heard the shot with the racket the biters were making, but when he looked down, he saw the blood pouring out of a wound in his thigh. The bullet had gone through, missing the bone. The fucker shot me. He looked back and saw a light curl of white smoke coming from the barrel of Rick's gun, disappearing in the wind. The sheriff and his faithful samurai walked toward him, weapons of choice out and ready for use.
"Hey, easy now." Philip said, hands raising in surrender. He stared at Lilly and Meghan, slowly being surrounded by biters, Tara nearly to them. "Do what you want with me. Put a bullet in my brain. But, please, save them."
Michonne looked at him oddly, her eyebrows furrowing together.
"Go. Save them. He ain't goin' anywhere without 'em." Hershel said, staring curiously at Philip.
"Get him on the bus." Rick barked as he and Michonne ran toward the women.
Philip watched helplessly as Tara and Lilly shot at the biters, emptying all they had while Meghan clung to Lilly's waist, burying her face in her mother's shirt. He felt hands under his armpits and he was pulled to his feet again, pain in his leg causing black spots to form on the outskirts of his vision. As he was dragged to the bus by Daryl and Tyreese, the last thing he saw before blacking out was Rick and Michonne reaching his family.
The jostling of the old bus woke him. It had never been in great shape and couldn't go over 30 mph. He could hear arguing but what really drew his attention was the hand on his face and the other on his chest. He could barely open his eye, it was so swollen he really shouldn't be trying but, he had to know. He opened it a fraction of an inch but, it was enough.
Kneeling in the space between the seat he was laying on and the one in front of his was Lilly Chambler. She was blotting his face with a wet cloth and gripping his shirt. He didn't know how long he had been out but it was dark outside the dusty window now. He watched as Lilly cleaned the blood from his face. He could see fresh tears on her face as she did it and the hand on his chest gripped his shirt tighter. To ease her agony, he whispered her name. A simple thing, he thought, but her reaction was overwhelming.
"Brian?" She whispered back. He gave her a slight nod of the head, all he could muster as everything pained him. She launched herself on him and sobbed against his chest. He tried to wrap an arm around her waist but found his hands bound with rope. "You were barely breathing, I thought you were going to die."
The arguing on the bus had ceased and a silence fell over the group, thick and suffocating. Meghan had appeared over her mother's shoulder. She had been crying too but, as she stared at Philip, a small smile spread across her face. She lifted up the white king from their chess set, the one with the drawn-on eyepatch. Philip didn't fight the smile as he stared at her. She shuffled forward, trying to hand him the white king but he shook his head. He said, "It's yours, pumpkin." She nodded and went to sit with Tara in the seat behind his.
A voice he didn't recognize said from the back of the bus, "Shit, he's really alive. Thought you would've finished the job, Rick."
"Hershel stopped me." His Southern drawl rising through the air, wafting toward Philip in one of the front seats. The sheriff spoke calmly though he knew that the subject for Rick was a sore one. Philip knew that Rick had wished the bullet he had put in him had gone some place else. He was starting to think that the sheriff was becoming more like him, more sadistic, more bloodthirsty. He liked that.
They ignored him again for a while and he watched as Lilly checked on his bullet wound. She had ripped away the rest of the pant leg and bandaged up the holes in his flesh. He almost forgot that she had been a nurse before this all started, he was grateful for it now. As he watched her, he said a soft, "Thank you."
She looked at him and asked, "For what?"
"For everything you've done."
She seemed to be studying him for a moment then she shuffled toward him on her knees and pressed a kiss to his lips. It was light, their lips barely touching but, it was all he needed. Anything more and his face would have erupted in pain and he would have passed out again. Lilly pulled away and a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She ran her hand through his hair before standing up and making her way around the seat to where her daughter and sister were.
Alone, Philip listened to the conversation the prison group was having.
"We need some place safe. We can't keep driving around." Hershel said calmly. Always the voice of reason, the old man was. Philip found is almost admirable.
"But where?" Who was that? Sasha, maybe? "Everywhere is overrun with walkers and what are the chances of us finding somewhere in the middle of the night that's safe and secure?"
Several voices started talking over each other at the same time, blood boiling, anger rising. They were turning on each other. Philip almost didn't speak up, but he didn't want to be kept prisoner on a bus for the rest of his life — that was no life at all. "Woodbury." His voice was a croak and only the Chamblers heard him.
"What was that, Brian?" Tara asked.
Louder, in a commanding voice that people would have expected out of a man called 'the Governor,' Philip repeated, "Woodbury." He managed to sit up in his seat, despite not having use of his hands, and leaned against the window. He saw that he had the attention of everyone on the bus and he added, "Fix the gate. It'll be safe, like it was."
Everyone had huddled around him. He felt weak again, he could barely keep his eye open but he forced it to remain so — he wasn't about to let them have even more of an upper-hand on him than they already did. Lilly had returned to his side, this time standing next to him as if she were ready to pounce on anyone who dare try to hurt him.
The bus had been stopped and Daryl had joined them. He was standing next to Rick, who was directly in front of Philip, Hershel to his right. Daryl was the first to speak.
"Woodbury, you say it's safe?"
"Last I was there, it was."
"Which was when?" Rick asked with a patronizing tone.
"Months ago." Philip replied. In truth, it was six or seven months ago, when Martinez and Shumpert left him after he massacred his people. He had returned to burn it all down but couldn't. Instead, he had burned out the room he had kept Penny in — that was the true reason he wanted to destroy the place anyway. He needed it gone, all remnants of her to be destroyed with the fire. He had dowsed the flames with water to keep it from spreading to what was his apartment. The shared wall had been damaged by the fire but only slightly, barely noticeable. He had locked the door with a padlock and tossed the key into the woods miles away when he left the following morning.
Daryl brought him out of his thoughts as he said, "We're supposed to just go on his word? What if it's a trap?"
"Trap?" Philip said, his usual baritone weak. "I don't have any more people for there to be a trap."
Hershel was whispering to Rick; Philip could barely make it out but he heard, "…send some people ahead, scout it out."
Rick was nodding and he said, "It's not a bad idea."
Louder, so everyone could hear, Hershel said, "Woodbury could be safe. It would feel more like a home."
To Philip, Rick asked, "Walkers inside?"
He nodded.
"Why?" Maggie asked from several rows back.
"Destroyed the fence." Philip replied simply, as if that answered the question and any other ones.
"Why'd you do a dumbass thing like that?" Daryl spat.
"I was mad." Philip replied coldly. The tension in the room had reached insurmountable high and he could see Michonne reaching behind her for her katana.
"Everyone calm down." Hershel said. Forever my savior, Philip thought. The old man continued, "Now we need volunteers to go check out Woodbury. It's not too far up the road."
"I'll go." Carl Grimes said from the back, his voice barely through puberty.
"Maybe someone who would have been old enough to vote back when society existed." Daryl said. He turned to Hershel and said, "Count me in."
"Me too." Michonne said, her cold eyes still on Philip.
"Two's enough. We'll go on the bike." Daryl said, motioning for Michonne to follow him. "Meet us at GA-16, just up the road."
They disappeared through the doors.
The sound of the motorbike returning woke him from his slumber; he didn't know when he had fallen asleep but the bus was still parked, although the scenery outside was different, the trees closer together. He could see faint traces of morning light out the window, peeking through the canopy, dawn was approaching. He heard the doors of the bus creak open and the engine of the bike cut off. The bus rocked as someone exited it. It was Rick, he knew it was Rick.
"How many walkers?" The sheriff asked, his voice faint, muffled by the bus' walls and windows.
"About fifty. We can take them." Daryl said in his usual bark.
"And the gate?"
"Smashed to bits, like he said. There's some lumber nearby though, we should be able to make a new one." Michonne said.
"Found some chicks living there, seemed harmless enough. They passed the test." He heard Daryl say. Philip wondered who the "chicks" were — he had killed damn near everyone who used to live there. He also wondered about the "test." Did people have to pass some rigorous one to join Rick's band of assholes?
"Where're the girls now?" Rick asked, his voice growing louder as he approached the bus again.
"Still in their apartment. They've been holed up there for some time it seems." Michonne answered. "We told them we'd be back with our group."
He heard the bike roar to life again and take off down the road. Michonne and Rick climbed the steps onto the bus and to Tyreese, Rick said, "Let's go home."
