Chapter 11: The Day After
By breakfast those that had slept through the night's ordeal had been filled in, the weapons had been cleaned up, reloaded and put away. Everyone now cleaned up and dressed sat down to a nearly silent breakfast. When the meal was nearly over Liv broke the silence. "Shane can you take Hershel and Maggie's place and help with the animals the next week or so? Lori I have ask you to take over Beth's duties. The shots last night are likely to have attracted unwanted attention so those on watch duties be extra vigilant the next few days. It'll take us at least days to dispose of all those walkers so we'll have to be outside the fences. We need you watching our backs." At their agreements Liv sighed and nodded towards the living room where Maggie, Beth and Dale were eating their breakfast and still standing vigil. "T-Dog can you take Dale's place in there after breakfast. Give him a chance to get some sleep. He can take back over after lunch. I'll take overnight."
"I can do that" he answered.
"Thanks. Annabeth, you and Isabel try to get some sleep when you're not on watch. We're going to need your help after lunch. I have a chore for Carl and Sophia today too" she said calmly before turning to Rick and Daryl. "I'm going to do a quick perimeter check then we'll get started on the walkers. There's some stuff in the garden shed and barn we'll need so make sure you're armed and meet me at the barn when you're ready?"
"Alright. What do you need Carl and Sophia to do?" Rick asked curious.
"I'll explain at the barn after checks. They shouldn't have to leave the grounds but you two will be outside a while so you'll need to bundle up warm" She said rising from the table passing Xander to Mary. She went upstairs securing her .45's on her chest she returned to the living room to check on Hershel. His pulse was rather weak but steady and the stump hadn't bled through the towel she'd wrapped it in. She took that as a good sign.
"He'll need another antibiotic about lunchtime" she said quietly covering him back up gently. She met Maggie's eyes "Try and get the rest of that coke in him. Dale knows how. I'll change out the towel and get him bandaged up properly when I come in at lunch. I wanna give it a bit more time for the bleeding to clot off." Maggie gave a small nod and turned her gaze back to her father's still face.
Turning silently Liv headed to the barn just bridling Atalanta not bothering with a saddle. Doing a quick perimeter check she eyed the chain link fence extra carefully, paranoid that it might be damaged or a stray walker might have somehow gotten under, over or through it. When she made it to where the bodies of the herd lined the fence she froze in place. She'd known there were a lot more than she'd originally thought there would be but seeing the scene in daylight brought home exactly what they had been up against last night. Stretching out more than a hundred feet from the fence were heaps of rotting corpses, some closest to the fence line were piled six or seven high. The thought of how easily they could have been overrun last night made her feel as if an enormous fist was squeezing her chest. "We need more cameras, more angles" she murmured to herself "This can't happen again." Drawing up plans in her head to beef up their security and mentally placing additional pitfalls Liv quickly finished examining the perimeter and returned Atalanta to the barn.
Daryl, Rick, Carl and Sophia were there already pouring feed to the horses as she put the mare in her stall. "There's two short ladders in the tack room and some lengths of rope, a few axes too. Do you mind getting those for me?" she asked them heading to the garden shed herself. Returning with two trowels, a stack of five gallon buckets and two boxes of lawn size garbage bags. Laying the shovels and one box at the barn door she handed the trowels to each Carl and Sophia "Leave the rope and axes there but they'll need the ladders" she said leading the way to a large pine tree that stood between the pastures and the house where she set the buckets and bags down. "The trowels are for moving the snow out of the way. What I want you two to do is clear a space of about three feet out from the trunk and take away the snow and top layer of pine needles. The layer under that should be pretty dry. Put the driest ones in the buckets. When you get all you can from the ground use the ladders to get all the dry dead needles you can reach from the lower limbs. If you wanna try giving the tree a good bump to make some fall that's good too. I want you to move to those two trees over there when you finish here. If you finish before lunch tell whoever's on watch to let me know ok?"
"What do you need all these for" Rick asked completely lost. Surprisingly it was Daryl who answered.
"Fuel." He looked at Liv who turned towards him surprised "Right?"
"Right. We're gonna need all of it we can get. I've been trying to work out how we're going to dispose of so many walkers. I think I've finally worked it out but it's going to be a lot of work." She turned back to the kids. "I know it's cold out here so go inside to warm up whenever you need to. Just do me a favor and take the full buckets in with you just line them along the wall inside the door okay? The heat in there will help dry out whatever moisture is in them."
"Okay and if we fill up all the buckets start putting them in the bags?" Carl said pointing to the box on the ground.
"Right. Thanks for your help guys."
Stopping by the barn to grab their tools Rick, Daryl and Liv made their way off the grounds and walked down the drive way a ways before Liv lead them off the path to a square pit that had been dug out. Ten by ten and about three feet deep there was nothing but stone and muddy ashes at the bottom. "This is where I usually dispose of walkers that make it to the property. Obviously not going to be enough this time so tomorrow we'll work on digging out a larger one. For today we need to fell some trees and work on the fuel to burn them before we worry about where to do it."
"So the wood'll have a day or two to dry out a bit" Daryl commented.
"That's what I figured."
"It's a good idea" Rick added looking at the woods around them. "Which trees are you thinking?"
"There's a couple that are dead or dying around here those'll be the best to go for first. Already dried up a bit. Plus they're pretty spread out so when they go down they aren't likely to come down on the other people's heads. Let's try and avoid that."
"Ya that'd be nice" Daryl said semi-sarcastically earning a cheeky grin from Liv.
"One reason I figured we'd fell the trees over here is you've got the burning pit as a point of reference. I'll show you each to where the trees are, if you need to leave that spot retrace your steps back to the pit and then back to the driveway. You don't want to wander far trust me."
After showing them the dead trees and locating her own they spent the next hour and a half hacking at their bases with their axes, keeping an eye out for walkers. Realizing she heard only one other ax still chopping Liv glanced off to her right where Rick's tree was. Not seeing him she rested her ax on her shoulder and headed slowly in that direction. She'd made it about ten yards from his tree when she heard a sudden hissing noise followed instantly by a gasp and a grunt. Realizing what had happened without even looking a grin spread across her face. Peeking around the tree she burst into hysterical laughter. Just a few yards past his tree Rick was currently suspended several feet in the air by one ankle a look of utter misery and frustration on his upside down face. A rope looped around his ankle held him firmly, disappearing high into the tree. Daryl came up next to her at a sprint, crossbow at the ready. He lowered it slowly turning his head sideways as if to see Rick's face right side up.
"That's why you said to retrace our steps back" Daryl stated motioning to the still swinging Rick.
"Yep" Liv answered still grinning.
"Figured." he replied simply "Didn't know it'd be that exactly but I figured you'd set traps of some sort. More pitfalls or something."
"No pitfalls in the woods didn't want to kill what little game is left accidentally."
"Makes sense."
"Not to interrupt the interesting little conversation you two are having over there but do you think we could get Rick out of the tree?" Rick asked making both of them smirk.
"I don't know I kind of prefer you this way" Liv said studying him with her head tilted slightly and a hand propped on her hip, a thoughtful look on her face. Daryl now actually smiling pulled his knife approaching the rope. "No need for that" Liv said catching his arm before he could cut her rope. "It works on a counter weight, you just have to pull him down." She added grabbing his shoulders and setting her weight to bring him down low enough for Daryl to untie his foot. "Keep hold of that rope so I can reset it."
"Thanks" Rick said getting to his feet and brushing himself off. "Little warning would have been good."
Liv just shrugged "Can't say I didn't warn you not to wander."
Rick just gave a frustrated sigh and started back to his tree muttering to himself. "Insane. Puts me on the psycho horse, hangs me upside down..."
Liv caught Daryl's eyes as they both smiled at Rick's mutterings. "How'd you do this?" he asked handing the end of the rope to her. She took her time resetting the trap and explaining the basics of it to Daryl before they got back to work.
By the fifth day after the herd's arrival they had felled at least a dozen trees, dug out an enormous twenty by twenty pit six feet deep, used bags and bags of tinder (Leaves, pine needles, twigs), charcoal, every bottle of lighter fluid available and even taken the gun powder from some of their shotgun shells. They had used the old pickup, retrieved from the clearing where they'd left the group's vehicles, to haul walkers to the pit four miles up the road from Raven Glenn. The original Idea had been to make the pit just outside the gates but Liv had vetoed that idea worried that 1: The fire might get loose and spread to the grounds and 2: Any unwelcome company in the proximity could see the smoke and follow it to Raven Glenn. She wouldn't turn her back on innocent people who needed help but she was in no way naive enough to think there wasn't people out there who'd kill every last one of them for their supplies or their home. Hard times brought out the best in some but more often than not it brought out the worst in most. Still after five days Liv had thought they'd be nearly done by now. Nine hundred and eighty-seven walkers later and she'd guess they were maybe half way through them. Though in all fairness the actual disposal had only been going three days, the first two were spent gathering up fuels and digging the pit.
"This is disgusting" T-Dog complained as he and Rick tossed another walker into the flames currently raging in the pit. Annabeth and Isabel returned to covering all of the daytime shifts of watch once the burnings started. Liv knew it was important for them to learn the way this new world works but watching these bodies burn, smelling the burning flesh... Her girls didn't need that in their minds. Not yet. So T-Dog was nominated to help with the actual disposal. His comment had broken her from her thoughts and she realized she'd been staring into the flames for a few moments.
"I know" Liv replied simply, glancing up she realized that Daryl had been watching her as she'd watched the flames lost in her thoughts. "Sorry" she said quietly flashing him a brief smile as they headed back to the truck to get another walker. On their next trip to the truck they pulled the remaining five walkers to the ground.
"Time for another run. Our turn aint it?" Daryl said glancing at the still quiet Liv, receiving a simple nod in reply. They'd gone about a mile from the pit when he broke the silence. "You alright?"
Liv looked up from where she'd been staring out the passenger window. "I should have woke the others too" she answered quietly.
"What?"
"I expected a few hundred maybe. Not a couple thousand. I shouldn't have assumed. We got lucky this time. It could have just as easily been ten thousand out there and with only six of us keeping them at bay."
"You had no way of knowin there was more than usual" Daryl said honestly. "You did what anyone else woulda done"
"Not good enough" She replied shaking her head. "We have to be prepared for the worst case scenario every time. Usually I always am. That night I just assumed it was a few hundred, Annabeth and Isabel have helped me handle nearly that many through the fence before. I figured taking you three out with us would make up the difference another hundred or two would make."
"Was a good idea. Woulda worked fine if it'd been what you thought. Just wasn't this time."
"Can't happen again."
He shrugged "Next time we'll go out ready."
"Not used to being wrong I guess" she said with a self-deprecating smile. "I don't like it" she added making a face. His only answer was to give a small smile not taking his eyes off the road as he pulled up alongside the chain link fence near the walkers.
Returning to the pit they had emptied several more trucklods but were interrupted when the walkie on the seat crackled and Isabel's static voice came through it.
"Aunt Liv?"
Pulling her gloves off she reached for the walkie answering quickly "What is it?"
"Something's different with Hershel, I think you need to get back here."