CHAPTER THREE

Rick walked along the bottom tier of Cell Block C, stopped at the doorway to Carl's cell, and looked at his son, who sat on the lower bunk, looking down at the floor, with his battered Stetson hat at his side.

"Carl," Rick said softly.

Carl didn't reply.

"We need to talk," Rick said.

Carl looked up at his father.

"Can I come in?" Rick asked.

Carl shrugged. "You're a cop, running a prison. I guess you can do whatever you want."

Rick stepped inside Carl's cell, sat on the small stool chair bolted onto the floor, and looked at his son. After a long minute of awkward silence, Rick asked, "Why are you so angry, Carl?"

Carl's eyes widened and he sat up straight. "What?" he asked.

"Why are you so angry, Carl?" Rick repeated.

Carl looked to his right and his left as he wrung his hands together. Why am I angry? He thought. The reasons ran through Carl's mind like stock cars at the Daytona 500:

Mom's dead.

Shane was screwing Mom while Dad was in a coma.

I wish I killed Shane when he was alive, instead of when he was a walker.

I shot Mom so she wouldn't turn.

I don't think Judith is Dad's daughter.

Dad doesn't think I know about Shane and Mom. He must think I'm stupid. I know he thinks I can't help the group.

Sophia's dead.

There's no Heaven.

It's my fault Dale was killed by that walker.

If Dad made sure that prisoner Andrew was dead, mom, Maggie, and me wouldn't have been trapped in that boiler room, and mom would still be alive.

I could've saved Mom if I had run through the walkers in the tombs and got Hershel.

I want to believe in Heaven. I want to believe that Mom and Sophia are somewhere safe.

Dad should've killed the Governor at that stupid peace meeting.

Merle's dead.

Andrea's dead.

I should've been with Dad and the others when they chased the Governor's army out of the prison.

I saved Judith, Beth, and Hershel from that punk in the woods, but Hershel ratted me out to Dad.

Those people from Woodbury were with the Governor! Why did Dad take them in?

The Governor is still alive, and he'll come back here.

I wish Dad would stop treating me like a kid.

"Carl?" His father's voice called over his hurried thoughts.

Carl blinked and looked at his father, who had a worried expression on his face. "What?" the boy asked.

"Are you all right?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," Carl nodded quickly.

"Are you sure about that?" Rick asked as he reached out and put a hand on Carl's shoulder. "You were shaking and you were clenching your fists."

"Dad, I'm fine!" Carl shouted as he swatted his father's hand away, stood up and stomped out of the cell.

"Carl!" Rick shouted in surprise.

Carl ignored his father as he turned to the left and kept walking. Rick grabbed the Stetson off the bottom bunk, stood up, and walked out of the cell. He saw Carl walking past the staircase and heading towards the barred doors at the end of the cell block.

"Carl!" Rick shouted again.

The young boy stood still, huffed angrily, and turned profile.

"Where are you going?" Rick asked.

"For a walk," Carl answered curtly.

Rick turned profile so Carl could see the doorway to the common room and pointed at it with the battered Stetson hat. "The exit is that way."

"I'm going this way," Carl said as he pointed his thumb at the barred doors behind him.

"Carl, we haven't checked that section of the prison yet."

"I have; that's the door I took to find the infirmary, remember?"

Rick shook his head in disapproval. "Carl, that was weeks ago. The walkers in those hallways may have doubled."

Carl rested his hand on the grip of his Berretta 92FS pistol in the holster at his side. "It's okay, I've got my gun."

Rick's eyes widened as he was stunned by Carl's nonchalance. He heard footsteps snapping off into the distance and realized his son was heading towards the barred doors.

"Freeze!" Rick shouted, as his police instinct kicked in.

Carl froze, and he gasped in fright. A moment later, Carl heard his father's footsteps coming towards him.

"Turn around," Rick ordered.

Carl turned around slowly, and looked up at his father.

"Something's bothering you, Carl," Rick said. "What is it?"

Carl lowered his head. I don't know what to say, Carl thought. I mean, Dad lost it for a while after Mom died. What would he do if I tell him Mom and Shane were screwing around, and Judith might not be his daughter? Would he kill himself?

The moment Carl thought of Judith, the baby's cries echoed from within the common room. Carl raised his head, and Rick turned around to see Beth rushing into the cell block with Judith in her arms. The young farm girl realized she had run interrupted a conversation and she stopped in her tracks.

"Uh, is everything okay?" Beth asked nervously.

"Yeah," Rick answered. "Carl and I were just talking."

"Oh," Beth said as she adjusted her hold on the baby. "Judith has a dirty diaper, so I was just going to…you know…"

"Sure," Rick said with a smile. "Thank you for taking care of her, Beth."

Beth blushed and hurried into her cell; Carl watched her holding his baby sister and a chill ran through him. The Governor will come back, and when he does, he'll try to kill us all, even Judith and Beth.

Carl glared at his father. "You should've killed the Governor at that stupid peace meeting."

Rick looked at his son, while the sounds of Judith crying as Beth hummed a folk song filled the cellblock. After a minute of silence, Rick finally said, "Maybe I should've."

Carl blinked. "Really?" he asked.

Rick nodded. "Andrea and I hoped we could work out a truce with the Governor; a border agreement, mutual avoidance, something. But the Governor wanted our surrender…our "unconditional surrender" as he called it. I should've pulled out my gun and shot him then and there, but I didn't. If I had, Andrea would still be alive, so would Merle."

"But you agreed to hand Michonne over to the Governor!" Carl said, with anger back in his voice.

"I know," Rick nodded. "I was wrong. At the time I was thinking that the Governor had the numbers, and he had us trapped inside this prison. I had to weigh the lives of our group—especially yours and Judith—over the life of a woman we barely knew."

"And the Governor is still out there!" Carl shouted. "You should've gone with Michonne to find him!"

"You mean, I should've let you go with Michonne to find him," Rick corrected his son.

Carl froze, but a few moments later nodded angrily. "Yeah! You should've!"

Rick knelt down so he was at eye level with Carl, and put a hand on his son's shoulder. "You're brave, Carl, and you're smart. Yesterday I was thinking about our talk before I left with Daryl and Michonne to finish off the Governor."

Carl listened to his father intently.

"I asked you if it was true that you shot that kid, do you remember that?" Rick asked.

Carl nodded as he remembered the teenager walking towards him slowly, holding the shotgun in his hand, but not dropping it, like Hershel ordered him to.

"You said that you did what you had to do. I understand that. I was shocked that you had that viewpoint, but when it came to protecting Judith, I understand it. I'd do whatever I have to do to protect you and your sister."

Carl stood a bit taller and a smile twitched upon his face.

"But the Governor is gone, Carl," Rick reminded his son. "The important thing now is to rebuild this prison. Michonne wanted to search for the Governor, and I couldn't stop her if I tried, but I had to stop you, and I had to stop myself. I need you here, and I've got to be here, too."

Carl bit his lip and he shook his head as his anger began to boil again. "What if the Governor does come back? What about those people from Woodbury that you brought here? What if the Governor shows up outside the fences and they decide to betray us?"

"That's why we have to rebuild this prison, Carl, so we'll be ready in case the Governor—or someone like him—shows up." Rick answered. "And as for the Woodburians, they're mostly old people and children. I couldn't leave them to fend for themselves. And if you had seen them, huddled together and afraid, you'd have asked me to bring them with us."

Carl nodded instinctively, when he realized that he just agreed with what his father said. I think Dad's right, he thought. And I think I'd ask that because Mom would want us to help them. The pleasant thought of his mother made Carl smile.

Rick's eyes brightened at what had become a rare sight: Carl smiling. "You realize you're smiling, Carl, right?"

"Yeah," Carl muttered bashfully. "Maybe you're right. Maybe if I had seen them I would've asked you we had to take them with us."

"The Woodburians weren't our enemies, Carl, the Governor was," Rick said.

"Yeah…I guess," Carl agreed.

Rick patted Carl on the shoulder and then he stood up. "Speaking about the Woodburians, I have to get Henry Matheson and start inspecting the damage around here."

As Rick turned around to leave the cell block, Carl shouted, "Dad!"

Rick looked over his shoulder at his son, "Yes?"

"Can I go with you?" Carl asked hopefully.

Rick smiled. "Sure."

Carl smiled and he walked alongside Rick as they headed towards the doorway to the common room. "Dad?" Carl asked.

"Yeah?"

"Can I go with you on that supply run you talked about?"

Rick stopped in his tracks and looked at Carl.

"Please?" Carl whined. "I just want to help the group like I did last winter, or when we and Michonne drove back to King County to find those guns."

Rick looked at the Stetson hat in his left hand and he placed it on Carl's head. "I'll think about it."

Carl adjusted the Stetson's fit and smiled broadly as he looked up at his father and they both resumed their walk and entered the common room. As they walked towards the side door, Rick saw Carol, sitting at a table and looking up at the barred windows; he didn't say anything to her. A moment later, Rick and Carl reached the side door, he opened it, and he and Carl stepped onto the courtyard.

•••

In Cell Block D, The Woodburians did their best to resume their routine: the children were on the courtyard playing with the few toys they brought with them, or they were playing basketball at the basketball hoop set up in front of Cell Block C. The adults in the common room also had a few diversions: the men were reading dog-eared paperback books, or they were playing chess or backgammon, and the women were washing the dishes and plastic cups from breakfast. The Woodburians self-appointed leader and Vietnam Veteran John Boyd, and his wife Donna, walked amongst the group and stopped occasionally to ask how they were and what they needed.

"The oatmeal is going to run out in a few days, John. You need to talk to Rick about that," Donna said to her husband.

"I will, Hon, soon as he's good enough to grace us with his presence," John quipped.

"Jesus, will you cut it out?" Donna pleaded. "Rick isn't the Governor."

"What makes you say that, Donna? Is it because he was a cop? If anything, that makes Rick twice as dangerous."

Donna looked around the common room to see that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation and leaned in closer to her husband. "John, don't do anything that could get us thrown out, please?" she whispered.

John took hold of Donna's hand, and patted it. "Don't worry, Hon," he smiled.

The barred door to the vestibule opened and the black, retired postal worker Floyd Townsend appeared with a paperback book about Negro League Baseball. "Hey, John!" he called out.

The Vietnam Veteran turned around and watched with concern as Floyd walked down the vestibule's steps. "Is something wrong, Floyd?" he asked.

"Maybe," Floyd answered as he made his way through the Woodburians. "That redneck just left; took the Dodge, not his motorcycle."

"Merle's kid brother left?" Donna asked.

"Yeah," Floyd answered.

"Again?" John asked incredulously. "He left yesterday with that grey haired lady to get his big brother and bury him in their group's sorry cemetery; did he get word that somebody else in his family croaked?"

"I don't know," Floyd said, as he took off his heavy rimmed glasses and ran his wrist across his forehead. "But I was sitting on the benches, reading, when I watched Dixon drive up to that cop car Rick's using as a gate, and leaned on the horn until Eddie moved it out of the way. Rick watched the whole thing from the courtyard."

"What's going on, John?" Donna asked as she looked up at her husband fearfully.

John waved a hand dismissively. "I don't know, Hon. But I do know that we've got problems of our own to worry about."

"Rick said there are walkers in the prison's hallways, maybe they're breaking into Cell Block D," Floyd said, as his arms dropped to his sides; his paperback book fell to the floor with a light thud.

"What are you three talking about?" Michael Garrett asked worriedly, as he adjusted his glasses; his wife Alicia, was by his side.

Fear started to creep into the other Woodburians and they began asking questions. Floyd put his glasses back on, and John raised his hands to signal quiet.

"It's okay folks, we were just talking some bullshit," John grinned. "It seems that Merle's kid brother left again without saying where he was going, but Floyd's imagination is running wild as to the reason why."

"Hey…what…?!" Floyd stammered in surprise.

John slapped the retired postal worker on the shoulder. "Shut up, Floyd, you're scaring everybody."

"Are you sure everything's all right, John?" Alicia asked.

"Affirmative," The Vietnam Veteran said confidently. "If Cell Block D was being overrun, we'd have heard screams and gunshots."

The Woodburians talked worriedly amongst themselves and John said, "Remember that Rick's people have all the guns in this prison; except for Betsy," The Vietnam Veteran patted the walnut grips of the Colt 1911 in the holster on his hip.

"That son of a bitch," Greg Manning spat. "If we're going stay here, Rick's got to give us some guns!"

One half of the Woodburians cheered in approval, but the others groaned with disgust.

"Are you crazy?" Alicia asked. "Half of our people were murdered two days ago, and you want to start handing out guns?"

"Listen lady, I just want stay alive," Greg said curtly to the blonde woman.

"Of course, we all do. But guns aren't the answer."

"Then what is the answer?!" Greg shouted. "Is it that we should believe that a rube cop can protect us? We believed in the Governor, and he slaughtered our friends!"

Michael put arm around Alicia's shoulders, and pulled her to his side protectively. "Hey, don't talk to my wife that—"

"Gregg's right, we should have guns too!" a man shouted.

The Woodburians had become divided into two camps, and they were arguing louder than before. Donna stepped forward and tugged on her husband's arm. "John, what the hell did you do?" she whispered.

"All I did was tell everyone the prison was safe, Donna," John answered.

"What about that crap about the guns?"

"Rick told them about the walkers in the prison's hallways yesterday; don't you think they'd start demanding guns for protection sooner or later?"

Donna started to protest, but couldn't think of an argument; she let go of John's hand and lowered her head in defeat.

John watched the Woodburians argue for a few moments, and he raised his hands again and shouted, "At ease!" until they quieted down. "Okay ya'll, calm the hell down and go about your business. I promise ya'll have more to worry about from boredom that you do walkers. When I see Rick, I'll talk to him about giving us some guns. Hell, I'll even talk to him about a trip to Woodbury to pick up the rest of our stuff."

John's announcement was greeted with cheers and applause. John grinned and he and a quiet Donna resumed going about the common room talking to people. Floyd, humiliated by John's words and actions, picked up his book; then he walked towards the vestibule door, up the steps and out of Cell Block D.

•••

The vestibule door to Cell Block D opened and Greg appeared; he walked down the steps, across the common room towards the table where John and Donna sat, and bent down to whisper in the Vietnam Veteran's ear. "Rick's coming."

John nodded and stood up when Donna took hold of his hand. John looked down, and saw the worried expression on his wife's face.

"Dear, please…," Donna begged quietly.

"Relax, Hon," John smiled as he patted Donna's hand. "I'm just going to talk to Rick."

Donna smiled nervously and let go of John's hand; John smiled at his wife again and he walked towards the vestibule door with Greg following behind him.

•••

John stood on the landing to Cell Block D, and watched Rick and Carl Grimes walking towards him. "Look, its Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday," he quipped.

Gregg, standing in the vestibule's doorframe, chuckled in agreement.

"Good morning," Rick said.

"Really?" Jack asked, with a smirk on his face.

Rick tilted his head for a moment. "What's that supposed to mean, John?" he asked.

"I heard Dixon skedaddled on you a while ago, Rick," John answered. "If a guy like him would just up and leave, maybe this prison isn't as safe as you promised."

Carl put his hands on his hips and huffed audibly. Rick looked down at his son; Carl saw his father's disapproving expression, and put his hands down and stood straight.

"For your information, Daryl went on a hunt," Rick answered curtly as he looked back at John. "And as for the prison, it's safer than Woodbury; remember that my people and I snuck into that town twice in one night."

John folded his arms across his chest as he glared at Rick. "That redneck damn well better come back with a lot of meat, because my people are starving."

"If Daryl brings back some game, it'll go to the crew replacing the gate; it'll be a tough job and they'll need their strength."

"Fuck that!" John shouted as he unfolded his arms and placed his hand on the grip of his Colt 1911 pistol. "First we lost our friends, and then we lost our home. Any meat Dixon brings back should go to us!"

Rick glared at John and rested his hand on the grip of his Colt Python revolver. Carl followed his father's example and placed his hand on the grip of his Beretta 92FS pistol. "The meat is going to the crew that replaces the gate," Rick said firmly.

John's eyes darted from Rick to Carl, and he realized he was outgunned, so he took his hand off his pistol. "I've got starving people in this cell block, Grimes, some of them are kids," he said with less spite than before.

Rick kept his hand on his service revolver, but his expression softened a bit. "I know, John. I know your people are hungry, mine are too. But replacing that gate is a priority, and if Daryl brings back some game, the meat is going to the crew. Once the new gate is installed, we'll put a group together and go out on a run for food."

John's eyes brightened and he looked over his shoulder again at Gregg, who looked similarly interested.

"If there's going to be a food run, I want in," John said as he looked back at Rick.

"Me too," Gregg volunteered, raising his hand.

A smile twitched upon Rick's face and he looked over at Carl, who was smiling too.

"I haven't decided on who I'm taking with me," Rick said as he looked back at John, "but I'll think about it."

John thought over Rick's announcements for a while, and asked, "How about going to Woodbury? We left a lot of food behind."

Rick shook his head. "It depends on what Michonne tells us about Woodbury when she gets back."

John smirked, his courage rekindled temporarily. "A black woman armed a samurai sword against a one-eyed nutcase, his two toadies, and their automatic rifles? She's as good as dead."

Rick glared at John again. "Michonne will be back."

John felt a chill run down his back like he hadn't felt since his first firefight in Vietnam and he broke his gaze on Rick. "Uh, yeah, of course she will," he muttered.

"Is Henry busy at the moment?" Rick asked.

"I don't know," John answered as he looked at Rick again.

Rick and Carl glanced at each other and smiled; then Rick looked back at John and gestured at the cell block. "I'd like to talk to him."

John looked over his shoulder and nodded at Gregg, who returned the gesture and disappeared into the cell block's vestibule. John looked uncomfortably at Rick and Carl until someone tapped him on the shoulder. John turned around and saw construction foreman Henry Matheson; Gregg wasn't with him.

"Rick wants to talk to you," John said as he stepped aside.

Henry walked past John and stepped onto the landing, tucked under his arm was a clipboard with a few sheets of graph paper attached to it. "Morning, Rick," he said with a nod.

Rick nodded. "Good morning, Henry."

"Can I help you?"

"Actually, I think you can help all of us."

Henry walked down the steps of Cell Block D and stood in front of Rick. "You're talking about a new gate, right?" he asked eagerly.

Rick nodded.

Henry smiled broadly and took the clipboard from under his arm. "Great!" he said cheerfully as he flipped through the graph paper. "Last night I made some designs for a new gate, and I think this is the one!"

Henry turned the clipboard around and offered it to Rick, who took it with both hands. Carl took a step closer to his father's side and looked at the design curiously. The design was drawn in blur ink, and featured two metal doors that opened and closed by means of a pulley system.

Rick studied the design and nodded impressively. "It looks good, Henry."

Henry smiled in appreciation.

"How do we build that thing?" Carl asked.

"If we're lucky most of the materials are on-site," Henry answered as he tapped the design with his index finger. "But before we start construction I'll need the exact dimensions of the old gate."

"Can you build this finished in a day Henry?" Rick asked.

"Yeah," the construction foreman nodded. "Just give me the tools, the people, and keep those damn walkers off my ass."

"We will on all three counts," Rick said. "Now let's measure the old gate, we'll get some people, split up into groups, and check the prison for materials later."

Rick, Carl, and Henry walked across the courtyard and downhill to the fence line where Tyreese Williams and Eddie Nowak guarded the squad car that served as a temporary gate; John, standing atop the steps to Cell Block D, watched them go as his courage slowly returned.

TO BE CONTINUED