CHAPTER 14: STRUGGLE WITHIN THE WRECKAGE!
Meanwhile, Inside of the overturned backside of the wreck of van that was lying in the woods next to the road and a small hillside after being shot and knocked off the road to the the ditch...
There was totally horrible mess, as every gun and other supplies onboard had flew out from their still in once pieces survived, partially broken or completely smashed boxes to everywhere during of the van's rolling along the road and its flight through the air and trees.
And... some of the weapons was also lying all around of the van's wreck.
Rick, who was burried alive under of the messed cargo after the rough ride and the landing was over, and who was quite bruised and battered from the rough ride and landing and landing but still very much alive, crawled slowly up on their feet from beneath of the messed guns and other supplies.
Rick was the first one of two who managed to get out from beneath of the pile of guns and other supplies on his knees.
And once he did, he felt stinging ache in his head and immediately lifted his arms upwards and wrapped his hands around of his head to relieve the pain.
"Oww! I think I hit my head to something and very hard." Rick moaned.
Zoe then emerged out from beneath of the pile of weapons and other stuff too, in the equal physical condition like Rick. And while emerging out from the pile of weapons and stuff, she rubbed with her hand her bruised faces right side... due to having two sore and bleeding scratches, one to her temple and another one to her cheek in middle of the big bruise.
"For the Savior, or at least ex-Savior, you got a very hard head. It's probably not easy to get it crushed, even if it is beaten with the end of the shotgun." Zoe commented teasingly, to which Nick shook his head and let out the snort.
However, there was no time for the raillery, because now when they've stopped by the Saviors, it would be clear that they would come down here to check the situation in the wreck, take all whatever is left from their stuff and kill them without hesitation.
And that, taking the command of the trio, Rick turned to Zoe.
"Zoe, the Saviors will certainly come down here to check the wreck and take all what's left from our cargo, including to kill us. Is there any big bags here into which we can pack our stuff, enough of guns, food, ammo and other supplies that what we can carry?" Rick asked, as he eyed the mess while trying to find the bags.
Lucky for them, Zoe's answer was positive.
And with the nod, Zoe turned to one corner, from where was three-four large bags waiting for to be used.
"Yes! At least three-four bags. They are our contingency plan if any of our big vehicles are in such situations like where we are now. All those who have surivived from such of rough ride and the fall over the ditch... each one of them takes the bags and packs them with everything what we can carry, the guns, food, ammo and other supplies, and then evacuates the wreck and leaves dead ones and all damaged, and even undamaged, stuff behind for the Saviors to slow down their pursuit." Zoe explained.
"Good!" Rick exclaimed, and took one of the bags which Zoe handed over to him.
"It's good for you that your people had prepared for everything. My congratulations for that." Rick said.
And for that, Zoe gave to Rick her polite smile.
"Thanks. I take that as a compliment. Besides, live long enough under the tyrannical rule of the Saviors, you pick up a thing or two... to both trick them in front of their faces and behind of their backs and prepare for their ultimate downfall." Zoe said.
Zoe then took one of the bags for herself, opened it and was about to gather the stuff into it, until Rick stopped her.
"Wait! I'll will start to pack our stuff, starting from my pack at first. You go to the van's cabin and the driver's seat to check that is Jackie still alive and okay from such of ride, and then come back here to help me to pack our stuff into the packs." Rick said.
This caused Zoe to turn to the van's cabin and the driver's seat, quickly remembering that Jackie was still in there since he got the fist wrestle with the Savior that had jumped into the cab from the back of the bike on the road before the crash.
And then, Zoe turned back to Rick and nodded.
However, before she left for Jackie, she created the suspicious look into her faces as she looked at Rick.
"Okay, I'll go. But don't even think of trying to steal our stuff and then sneak away from the scene and leave us here to die!" Zoe warned Riock sternly, showing that there was still some distrust in Zoe towards Rick, even though she seemed to lay her trust to Rick in this very moment.
Rick sighed out of a slight frustration for this, as he learned that Zoe remained partially distrustful towards him even though they're still all in the same boat and in the common trouble with the Saviors.
"May I remind you that we're now on the same boat and in the common trouble with the Saviors? So maybe we can put the distrust between of us aside for a while and focus more either to our escape or counter-attack on them." Rick said.
"Besides, try to guess twice that am I willing to run out of the wreck, cowardly intending to flee from the scene with the bag full of some of the guns and goods and without you two... and then get shot immediately from the short range by the Saviors before I can even disappear into the woods."
This one from Rick's mouth left Zoe quite speechless, thus unable to answer.
Zoe was at least definitely sure of one thing. That for the Savior, or at least ex-savior by her opinion of him, Rick got the point... and that the man like him certainly wasn't a sneaky and selfish coward neither overconfident fool to jump in front of the Saviors guns and get shot once he emerged out of the wreck.
It didn't take from Zoe too long before she finally got the word out of her mouth.
"Only if you're a sneaky and selfish coward or overconfident fool to even try that." Zoe said.
But before she tried to move towards the van's cabin, she turned to Rick yet one more time.
"But... you were a fool at the moment when you started to boss the Street dogs. We Street dogs do not usually take the orders from the outsiders... no matter how harmless or dangerous they are." added and kept moving towards the cabin.
Rick followed her going towards the van's cabin, until his eyes were locked to the Savior, whose badly bruised body was lying motionlessly on his back against the van's wall behind of the passenger's seat.
The Savior seemed to not have any fatal damage, even though the guy's while sleeveless shirt was tattered and the blood-stained, and yet his faces were quite bruised and full of scratches... plus, even his blonde hair and the faces were quite blood-stained.
Zoe, however, did not seem to pay any attention to the Savior, probably thinking that he was dead.
And probably it was so, because there's no need for the physical damage that can lead to the unavoidable death if the Savior had suffered the death throughg of the some inner fatal damage or then he did broke his neck in that rough raid.
However, Rick was not convinced of this, and it was not about that, that apparently dead-looking body, that has reanimated as an walker, suddenly wakes and attacks anything living in near of it... depending on what kind of condition the walker's body was.
But it's about the humans themselves... because people always have enough intelligence to pretend dead or frame their deaths so that they can strike when it's last thing to expect by their victims.
And Rick already has experience of this, which cost him his late wife back in the prison.
However, Rick turned back to his bag and opened it, starting to pick up the weapons, ammunition magazines, canned food, water bottles and other useful supplies to check their condition, and putting in the bag all those who were intact and still in service...
...but Rick of course paid the look at the Savior's carcase every five or ten seconds, not wanting to take any risks of being tricked by the Savior.
And while Rick started to pack up their stuff into the bags, Zoe passed the Savior's carcase and kept heading towards the van's cabin.
"JACKIE? JACKIE? ARE YOU OKAY OUT THERE?" Zoe called for Jackie, as she entered to the van's from the rough raid twisted cabin and looked around of her.
Zoe found at first the Savior, with whom Jackie was fighting in the cabin before the rough crash.
The Savior was lying partially out of the cabin and that his upper body was lying outside of the cabin. Yet he was fatally impaled by one of the shards of the broken windscreen from his waist, killing him, and yet his limbs were dislocated and badly twisted.
Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Zoe turned to the driver's seat and spotted Jackie.
"Why the hell did I took off my protective riot suit?! Why?!" Jackie complained with the throaty voice.
The American-asian man was still alive, but in the same condition what Rick and Zoe were, maybe even in a bit worse.
Jackie had received some cuts from the sharp-edged shards of the windscreen remains. For excample, he had the bad cut in his left temple and his faces were half-covered from the left side with the blood from the cut in his temple and the another side of his faces were in bruises and scratches as well. The shards had also tore his shirt nearly completely into shreds, worse from his left sleeve and from the skirt, leaving his upper body and his left hand full of the slightly bleeding cuts.
Yet Jackie was holding from his left shoulder with his right hand and the man was gritting his teeth out of pain, as he stood up on his feet.
"Fucking lunatics!" Jackie muttered in pain and in rage.
"Are you okay?" Zoe asked, as she attempted to stretch her hand towards Jackie's left shoulder to see its condition, to which Jackie reacted by stubbornly pulling his shoulder away from Zoe's reach as well as chasing her hands off. This act also caused Jackie to let out the brief growling-like gasp out of pain.
"With the exception of my fucking left hand, I'm in one shape." Jackie responded.
"But I gotta get out of here! I need the space to re-place my arm back to its place!" Jackie added.
Because their van was turned over and was standing on its left side in the ground, meaning that the driver's seat's doorway was blocked by the ground and that the passenger's seat's doorway led to the van's right side that was above of the whole vehicle...
...and because they were expecting the ambush of the Saviors, that were in the hot pursuit on their tails, who would without the hesitation shoot to death anyone who would foolishly dare to step out from the van's wreck, and yet because the van's backside ceiling was tore off by the car thrown by the explosion...
...they needed to get out from the wreck through of the massive open torn hole in the ceiling of the van's backside.
Zoe attempted to help him, but Jackie still stubbornly turned her help down, claiming that he was able to move despite his injured and dislocated arm.
"How's our ex-Savior companion?" Jackie asked from Zoe as they were about top exit from the ruined cabin, even though he seemed to care less that was Rick still alive or dead.
Meanwhile, in the backside of the van's wreck... as Zoe's attention was focused to check Jackie's condition while Rick's attention was focused to pack up the next bag, the Savior who was apparently dead slowly opened his eyes, secretly revealing that he was just knocked out.
The Savior, kept pretenting to be dead to avoid getting spotted and then killed, looked carefully and through of the narrow gap between of his eyelids around of him with his eyes to see that what was happening at the moment.
The first thing He saw in front of him was Rick, who had kneeled down and was at the moment packing into the bags with the van's survived cargo, leaving behind only damaged weapons and the canned food, and kept at the same time him an eye while doing that.
As he saw that Rick was about to look at him to check that was he already awaken, the Savior quickly closed his eyes and pretended to be dead, realizing that at least Rick wasn't convinced of him being apparently dead.
The Savior remained in his false death and kept an eye on Rick, counting in his mind the seconds that how long it took from Rick to focus to checking the condition of their stuff and packing them ino the bags he had nearby before he turned his attention towards him to check that was he really dead or just pretending to be dead.
And after half of minute, the Savior found out that that Rick turned his skeptical look in his direction every five or ten seconds.
And with that information, including taking into account to his dead-like position which the Savior could use as an advantage to fool these people and see more that was happening at the moment around of him, the Savior peeked then next over of the corner of his right eye and spotted Zoe's legs.
And immediately after pretending to be dead again as Rick turned his eyes towards him after ten seconds to check him out, the Savior turned back to Zoe's legs and carefully lifting his head up, seeing Zoe herself standing right neck to him, speaking to someone he was unable to see because of her.
And yet her back was turned to him and her attention was in the somewhere else.
And with that, as Rick was once again about to turn his head towards him, the Savior started pretended dead again.
And after that, the Savior then lowered his eyes looked down of him and saw the knife lying next to his right hand. And carefully lifting his head up, the Savior saw loaded triple-barreled-shotgun lying in the ground next to his legs...
...and before starting pretend dead again, the Savior took the glance from the nearby overturned box and its grenades lying in the ground near of each others... including the four red fuel tanks.
And after Rick had agains turned his eyes away from the Savior, the Savior turned to the left, as spotted that there was the hole in the bottom of the van's backside.
The Savior then peeked out from the hole to see was there anything he could use as an advantage against these three.
And, he saw one such.
The red 1997-2003 Ford F-150 SuperCab XLT mounted with a Browning M2HB machine gun having stopped to the road and his remaining buddies, Ben, Randall, Greg and Michael on board, eyeing the wreck from the road.
The Savior then quickly began to play dead yet again, when Rick turned his eyes at him once again, before Rick then turned back to packing their goods into the bags, and he was nearly finished with the second one.
The Savior then used his last ten seconds to peek at the knife lying next to his right hand and then at Zoe who did not suspect a thing about the danger right behind of her back, then at the triple-barreled-shotgun lying next to his feet, then at the overturned box of grenades and the fuel tanks next to it...
...and finally, his Savior buddies on the road onboard of their vehicle.
And when he had to play dead yet again, the Savior recalled in his mind everything he had saw, forming the simple plan to take all three of them off guard with the non-suspected surprise attack.
The knife on his reach and Zoe right next to him, with her attention away from him and not suspecting anything, it was the perfect opportunity to slash with the knife Zoe's legs from behind and thus making her cripple and unable to escape from his buddies before they'll shoot her to death.
And with triple-barreled-shotgun, the savior thought he could kill at least one of them or maybe two of them before he himself is killed as well, or at least alert his buddies about the survival of these three fugitives and their ability to the the possible resistance against them. It could provoke his buddies to make the counter-attack with the raw power at the wreck... which could lead to an easy victory, if either one or two of these people were dead, and the remaining one is cripple either from the legs or from the dislocated arm, leaving only one to make the last stand against his buddies... with the weapons which do not qualify for any other use than as a melee weapons... which would not be of much help against working firearms.
And, as a backup plan if all fails, the last thing was the commit suicide with the grenades and the fuel tanks, that could take all three of them with him.
"Oh, Rick? He's alive and fine. He's right now packing our goods into the bags so that we can get out of here with everything what we could carry with us." The Savior heard Zoe saying, as the woman was about to turn around and move away from him.
The Savior took this as an opportunity to either slice off Zoe's leg or slash the severe wound to it to make her cripple, before going to the next part of the plan.
It was now or never.
Not caring anymore if he's spotted by Rick, the Savior instantly quit from playing dead and picked the knife from the floor, taking it with his hand to his left side and prepared himself to pull the knife back to right, aiming its blade to Zoe's left leg...
...but instead of slashing with the knife's blade Zoe's leg, the Savior intended to stab with the knife to Zoe's leg, hoping that the stab could reach to Zoe's bone and make even worse damage.
However, as Rick was picking the Heckler & Koch Mark 23 handgun with the silencer from the overturned wall of the van's backside and turned his attention once again to the Savior, he gasped out of shock after he quickly realized that what the Savior was intending to do.
"ZOE! JACKIE! LOOK OUT!" Rick warned, as he quickly lifted the handgun up and aimed with it at the Savior.
And then, Rick fired with it at the Savior.
The shot hit the Savior's right arm...
...and all suddenly and at the same moment happened Rick's warning for both Zoe and Jackie, as well as the gunshot through of the silencer and the Savior's cry out of pain startled both Zoe and Jackie, as their attentions quickly turned from Rick's warning cry and the gunshot to their left from where they heard the throaty cry out of the pain.
And, much to their shock, they saw the Savior, whom Zoe had though to be dead, still alive... and who still attempted to stab Zoe's leg by pulling the knife in his hands towards Zoe's legs, despite the gunshot wound in his knife-holding arm and the burning pain of it.
However, even though they were badly surprised from this suddent event, Zoe and Jackie quickly recovered from their shock and jumped backwards as the Savior swung his knife towards their legs, narrowly managed to avoid their legs to be either stabbed or sliced by the Savior's knife... much to the Savior's anger.
Rick fired at the Savior again, and this time, hitting to under of the Savior's right shoulder, and making the Savior cry out of pain again.
However, stubbornly and fiercely resisting the pain in his shoulder and arm, the Savior then turned his angry and vengeful look at Rick, before he swung his knife-holding arm forward with all strength he had and released his grip from the knife's handle... sending it to fly towards Rick.
The knife, thrown with the sore arm, missed from hitting Rick, but it still managed to slice the small but painful cut to the back of Rick's hand nonetheless, thus causing Rick to let out the throaty yelp out of pain and lreleasing his grip from the gun's handle... dropping it to the ground... and grabbing from his bleeding back of hand with his another hand.
With two others away from him and the third one disarmed, the Savior quickly stood up on his knees and started to crawl towards the triple-barreled-shotgun, stretching his right hand towards the gun to grab it, caring nothing of the soreness of his arm.
However, before the Savior was even able to lay his fingers around of it, Zoe leaped towards the Savior and tackled him down...
...but did not manage to do it in time because the Savior managed to wrap his left hand's fingers around of the weapon and took it with him as he and Zoe started to roll on the van's backside's overturned left wall while wrestling with each others.
Zoe got the upper hand at first, managing to pin the Savior down and started to whack his faces with her fists...
...but after several hard punches, that left the Savior's nose bleeding and caused him to lose some teeth from his mouth, the Savior grabbed from the weapon with two hands and swung its backside towards Zoe... hitting with it to her faces.
The strike from the shotgun's backside to her faces was strong enough that it knocked Zoe off him and aside.
The hard strike also caused Zoe to feel dizzy, which brough some difficulties for her to even try to stand up, leaving her to lie on the overturned wall, moaning in pain and rubbing her left sore cheek.
The Savior, however, attempted to use this as an opportunity to blast Zoe's head with the shotgun, so he quickly wiped the blood off his faces and climbed back on his feet. And after that, he loaded his weapon and aimed it at Zoe's occipital.
However, Rick had meanwhile ignored the wound in the back of his hand and charged at the Savior from behind, and the impact caused the Savior to lift the gun's barrels off Zoe's occipital, after which the Savior pulled the trigger by reflexes, firing the first and loud shot to the overturned van's backside's bottom.
Rick then wrapped one of his right arm around of the Savior's neck and slipping his left arm from beneath of the Savior's left arm, he took the tight grip from his arm and pulled the Savior backwards with all strength he got.
Even though the Savior was quite tall and had a muscular build, Rick's sudden move and to which he hadn't even prepared for, caused the Savior to lean too sharply backwards that caused him to struggle to keep his balance, and during of which, the Savior lifted the shotgun upwards again and fire by reflexes another shot, which nearly hit, but narrowly missed, and knocked Jackie off his feet and over to the overturned van's backside's left wall.
The landing caused Jackie to grit his teeth out of the pain due to his dislocated left arm, causing him to roll in pain in the ground.
And the Savior, despite having Rick hanging on him from behind, lifted his weapon up again in intention to shoot Jackie while the latter was helplessly and unable to defend himself rolling in the pain in the ground...
...only for Zoe to recover in time from the strike to her faces she gave from the Savior's shotgun, to lift her head up and witness that what the Savior was about to do at the moment, roll around of the ground so that she was lying on her back and quickly lifted her right leg upwards into the kick towards the shotgun...
...and the kick was strong enough send the shotgun to fly in the arch towards to Jackie focusing and nothing suspecting Savior that it struck him in the face, knocking him backwards which helped Rick in his desperate attempt to pin him down.
And after the gun had hit the Savior in the face, the Savior pulled the trigger by the reflexes and fired the last shot through the overturned van's backside's right wall.
Now he had used all the shots of the gun, making the weapon partially useless to him.
Meanwhile, while Rick and Zoe were fighting the Savior, Jackie struggled to get up from the ground, and it was very painful process because of his dislocated arm. The pain in his dislocated arm burned him so badly, making Jackie to groan loudly and grit hardly his teeth out of pain, that he failed almost in every time when he even attempted to get to even sit.
However, he eventually succeed to get to sit, and he leaned against the wall that was behind of the driver's seat.
And, ignoring all the pain he had suffered from his various failed attempts to get up from the ground and facing a new ones, Jackie placed his hand to his left shoulder and started to push his arm's bone back to its place.
The process was extremely unpleasant to him.
Every attempt to move his arm to its place sent the burning pain waves all over his body.
And the burning pain waves made him groan, yelp and grit his teeth out of pain.
However, Jackie kept moving his dislocated arm back to its place, ignoring al lthe pain the best he could.
And then, after three attempts...
...Jackie successfully got his dislocated arm back to its place, which send out the nasty-sounding snap that caused Jackie to let put the throaty yelp out of pain.
And after that, Jackie remained to leaning against the wall while holding with his arm from his extremely sore left shoulder and arm when the torturing pain waves took them over, causing his left hand to shake out of the pain.
But, stubbornly ignoring the pain, Jackie lifted his head up to witness his companions fight with the Savior, and cursed the fact that because of his sore arm he was unable to help them in any way.
Meanwhile, during the struggle with Rick, the Savior found out of nowhere a new use for the triple-barreled-shotgun.
He started to use it as a melee weapon.
And the first thing the Savior did the shotgun as a melee weapon, was that he tilted slightly to the left so that Rick slided off his back and remained to hang from him in his left side, that he could get the better aim to Rick with his into the melee-weapon turned fire-arm...
...and then the Savior pulled with raw power his gun's backside to the backwards, stricking Rick to his stomach, making him to yelp out of pain and release his grip from around of Savior's neck and fall on his knees to the ground, gasping for the air and holding with both of his hands from his stomach.
The Savior turned around and lifted his weapon up as an attempt to crush Rick's skull when he was lying on his knees unable to defend himself.
However, Zoe took an advantage of this and quickly stood up on her feet from the ground and bounced towards the Savior, wrapping her arms around of the Savior's neck from his right side and remained to hang from the Savior's by the same way as Rick did.
However, the Savior brutally struck Zoe to her stomach with his shotgun's backside, causing Zoe to gasp out of pain she felt in her stomach and make her to let go from the Savior and fell roughly on his back to the ground, that it pushed some breath out of her.
And as Zoe remained to lie on her back in the ground, panting for the breath, the Savior attempted to squeeze Zoe's head against the ground with the brutal force and the backside of the shotgun.
However, while the Savior was preparing to kill Zoe...
Rick, who had partially recovered from the hard strike to his stomach behind of the Savior's back, had spotted Michonne's katana lying in front of him and within the reach of his hands.
Rick looked back at the Savior, whose full attention was focused to Zoe and attempted to crush in pain in the ground lying Zoe's head with the backside of the triple-barreled-shotgun, and then he looked back to Michonne's sword.
And thinking quickly, Rick picked Michonne's sword into his hands...
...and before the Savior could even do his fatal strike on Zoe...
...Rick leaned to his left that he was about to fall on his left side in the ground, during of which he swung Michonne's katana's long blade towards the Savior's legs and managed to cut the deep cuts behind of the Savior's shins.
The Savior roared in pain he felt in his shins, before his injured legs failed him under of his weight and the Savior fell on his left side to the ground in between of Rick and Zoe, gritting his teeth and still groaning out of pain.
The Savior then lifted his head up, ignoring most of the pain in his legs, and spotted the grenades and the fuel tanks right in front of him.
It was a time of the last part of his plan.
The Savior started to hurriedly crawl towards the fuel tanks and the explosives...
...which was not left unnoticed by Rick, who quickly realized that what the Savior was about to do!
"HE TRIES TO BLOW US UP! STOP HIM!" Rick shouted, and he quickly crawled up.
Recovered Zoe, having heard Rick's warnings and looking at the Savior heading towards the fuel and the grenades, this realizing the Savior's intentions, hurriedly climbed back to her feets and jumped on the Savior's back, attemting to pin him down and prevent him to reach to the grenades.
However, the Savior's large size and his muscular build was too strong for Zoe and the Savior kept crawling towards the explosives.
To prevent him from even touching the grenades, Zoe picked the knife from the ground and started to stab with it for various times to the Savior's back to cause various bleeding and yet fatal wound that would eventually slow down the Savior and eventually kill him to the stabbing wounds.
However, even though the Savior let out from his mouth various throaty yelps out of pain in each stab he got into his back, he kept resisting the pain in his back from Zoe's knife and kept crawling towards the grenades.
Zoe did everything she could to keep the Savior away from the grenades, trying to pin him down with her weight and kepot stabbing him to the back... but, however, she was too light to keep the bigger and heavier Savior down, who had started to use both of his hands to grab from something and pull himself along the ground and closer to the grenades.
And when he was close enough to reach at least to one of the grenades, the one that was lying in of his reach, the Savior stretched his right hand forward as an attempt to grab the grenade into his hand... and he also stretched out his left hand towards it to pull the grenade's safety pin off the grenade to make it, as well as the rest of the grenades and the fuel tanks in the proceed, to explode within the vehicle and kill all four of them...
...Jackie, who had partially recovered from the pain in his sore arm after having placed it back into its place and had rushed to Rick's and Zoe's aid!
Jackie reached to the Savior as he was so close to reach with his hand to the grenade.
And just as the Savior was about to wrap his dirty fingers around of the grenade and moved his left hand closer to of it, attempting to grab from the grenade's safety pin to pull it off, to prevent the Savior to do what he was attempting to do that could kill them all, Jackie lifted his right leg up and then he landed his leg down onto the Savior's stretched arm with all the weight and strength Jackie got into his leg.
The Savior let out the loud cry out of pain as Jackie's hand landed onto his arm, but even though Jackie got all his strength and weight into it, it was not enough to break his arm...
And the Savior, refusing to give up and stubbornly refusing to die in the hands of the trio, the Savior still tried to reach with his left hand to the grenade's safety pin and pull it off to kill all of them at once.
However, he immediately received the fiery kick to his faces from Jackie's right leg's shoe, which broke the Savior's nose and caused the Savior's upper body to bent backwards, helding support from the ground with his undamaged remaining left hand.
The Savior, with the broken and onto his faces bleeding nose, snarled angrily at Jackie for what he just did.
Thinking quickly, the Savior spotted the machene lying in the ground and next to his left arm.
And then the Savior, ignoring Zoe still hanging on his back while she kept stabbing him to his back, forget the grenade for a while and stood up on his feet and grabbed to the machete's handle, as an attempt to sink the machete's long blade into Jackie's stomach to kill him.
"OH, NO, YOU DON'T!" Rick cried from aside as he attacked the Savior to his left flank, holding Michonne's katana in his hands.
Rick swung Michonne's katana towards the Savior's left arm and managed to slash the deep cut above of the Savior's elbow, and proceed to make another long and deep cut to the Savior's left side, causing the Savior to let out again the cry out of agony and he dropped the machete out of his hands before he managed to hurt Jackie with it.
The Savior tried to take the support from the ground with his hand, but his wounded arm was shaking, unable to carry his bleeding body's weight, and he fell back on his stomach to the ground.
Zoe then took as the next target for the blood-covered knife in her had the Savior's left calf, stabbing two times the knife's blade to deep into the flesh that it nearly made it to the bone. This caused the Savior to let out the another cry out of pain as he fell onto his wounded left side to the ground when the wounded leg failed under of his weight.
The Savior was now at their mercy.
And to ensure that the Savior wouldn't make any other attempts to get up and reach to the grenades, now when he had been severely wounded, Rick lifted Michonne's sword above of his head and attempted to land it onto the Savior's wounded left hand to chop it off.
But, however, despite having the bad and bleeding cuts in above of his elbow and in his left side from Michonne's sword in Rick's hands, along with the numerous burning and bleeding stabbing wounds in his back and the left calf from Zoe's knife, the Savior still fiercely and stubbornly resisted against the waves of pain he felt in his left arm, in his left side, in his left calf and in his back.
And with that, grinting his teeth when he fought against the pain, he climbed on his knees and pulled his right hand off from under of Jackie's leg, before his brutally struck his right hand's elbow against Jackie's stomach, making him to let put the throaty gasp from the impact of the Savior's elbow against his stomach, which also knocked him over on his back to the ground.
The Savior was then about to move quickly for Rick, but he did it too late as Rick already chopped his left hand off with Michonne's sword.
Ignoring the pain in his left arm, the Savior squeezed his right hand's fingers into fist and punched with it hard to Rick's faces, knocking him roughly over on his right side to the ground and aside.
And then, the Savior swung his right hand's elbow back to the right and behind of him, and his elbow managed successfully - or because of the mere luck - to catch Zoe off guard and hit her into her faces, knocking her over on her back to the ground in behind of the Savior, leaving her knife to remain in the Savior's shoulder.
And after all three of them were out of his way, the Savior then reached to the grenade and grabbed it into his hand.
But, because she had lost his hand, thanks to Rick and his the long knife - and that the Savior started to feel himself a bit tired and dizzy due to the wounds he had received and the blood loss, whuch told to the Savior that he had no much time before he himself will be taken by the death - the Savior started to move the grenade's safety pin towards his mouth, attempting to remove it with his teeth.
However, he was soon attacked by both Jackie and quickly from the hit to her faces recovered Zoe, who leaped onto him in attempt to prevent him from triggering the grenade and take it away from his hand!
Jackie went for the grenade in the Savior's hand with his right arm, though it was still a bit sore, and wrapped his another arm over of the Savior's left shoulder, while Zoe wrapped her right arm tightly around of the Savior's neck, afther she pulled her knife outta the Savior's shoulder and started to stab the Savior to his stomach with it.
Fighting against the pain from the numerous stabs to his stomach, the Savior struggled fiercely and stubbornly back against both Jackie's and Zoe's tight grip around of his upper body and in attempt to get the grenade's safety pin between of his teeth to trigger it and blow himself up, along with Zoe and Jackie...
...but for now, he squeezed his fingers around of the grenade and straightened his arm forward, in an attempt to keep Jackie's hands away from the grenade and he also pushed him back with both of his right shoulder and with his back, while he attempted to keept with his bleeding and amputated hand Zoe away from him...
...and with the quick and briefly lasting moves, the Savior attempted for the few times to rid himself from Zoe and Jackie by punched Zoe into her faces with his fist that was squeezed around of the grenade and hit with his arm's elbow to Jackie's stomach.
However, the duo stubbornly fought back the pain as the Savior did.
"Give me that grenade, you fucking idiot!" Jackie barked, as he attempted to reach to the grenade.
"Sure! Just let me to pull the fucking safety pin off from it and you'll have your fucking share from it!" The Savior barked back!
The Savior then started to move the grenade towards his mouth to place the safety pin between of his teeth.
And upon the realizing this, Jackie didn't anymore tried to reach to the grenade but instead he grabbed to the Savior's arm with the both of his hands and started to pull it away from the Savior's mouth... and Zoe started to twist the knife in the Savior's current wound to make it more fatal wound, making the Savior to grit his teeth out of pain but at the same time stubbornly trying to ignore it.
However, despite their best efforts and the Savior's wounds and to the certain death leading fatal state, the Savior managed to get the grenade's safety pin even closer and closer his mouth, no matter how hard Jackie attempted to push his arm backwards.
Jackie then noticed the very same machete, with what the Savior had tried to use to kill him, and quickly thinking the solution to this narrow situation between of the chances of preventing the explosion and surviving from the explosion...
"Fine! Then I have to take it with the hard way!" Jackie said, as he released his right hand's grip from the Savior's arm, leaving his left had to desperately keep pulling the Savior's grenade-holding hand backwards.
Jackie them stretched his hand towards the machete's handle to grab to it, so that he could use it to chop the Savior's grenade-holding arm off before he could put it into his mouth.
He was so close to reach to it...
...and Zoe still kept stabbing the Savior with her knife to weaken him even more.
However, the Savior noticed that both of Jackie's and Zoe's attentions were elsewhere than in his faces, which fit as an perfect advantage for him to take them both out by surprise now when they have let their guard down!
And so, the Savior turned his head at first to Zoe's direction and quickly spit into her faces.
The Savior's spit landed quickly and unexpectedly to Zoe's right eye, that this unxpected - yet disgusting - counter-attack successfully caught Zoe off guard and forced her to release her grip from her knife and the Savior and retreat backwards to wipe the spit off her faces.
And when Zoe was out of the way, the Savior then turned his attention to Jackie's arm, which was still reaching over his left shoulder and holding from the Savior's grenade holding hand as Jackie kept pushing his arm and the grenade away from the Savior's mouth.
So the Savior forget the grenade for a while and turned to Jackie's arm, opening his mouth and closed his teeth around of Jackie's arm, bitting down so hard that blood began to drain out of his mouth from the wounds his teeth caused to Jackie's arm.
The feel of the pain that came from his arm in between of the Savior's teeth and the hard bite made Jackie gritted his teeth before he let out of his mouth the loud and painful cry, even though it wasn't the walker's bite.
Forgetting the machete for a while, Jackie himself straightened up on his knees, grabbed from the Savior's shoulder and forcefully pulled his arm off from between of the Savior's teeth, leaving his bite mark as the ring of slightly bleeding teeth marks on his arm.
The Savior then turned back to peek over his right shoulder to look at Jackie, who was holding his bite wound in the left arm with his hand.
"Isn't it... isn't it infected by the... by the dead fuck's spittle, fucker? Huh? Such... such of pity, that... that I wasn't... wasn't one of those... those dead fucks... yet!" The Savior, panting from the exhaustion from the numerous wounds Zoe caused to him with the knife, taunted Jackie...
...before he pulled his arm to the left and swung his elbow back to the right and struck hard with it to Jackie's stomach, making Jackie to gasp from the pain and made him to slightky bow down to hold his from the hard impact sore stomach.
The Savior proceed by hardening the grip of his fingers around of the grenade and swung his fist upwards, brutally punching Jackie straight to his faces as he was in the bowing position - causing at the same time some blood (along with a couple teeth) to fly out from Jackie's mouth and nose - and sent him to fly over and on his right side to the ground.
Billy was left to lie in the ground on his back, with both of his nose and mouth slightly bleeding and as bit dizzy from the hard punch.
And, after both Jackie and Zoe were out of his way, the Savior turned to the rest of the van's grenades and the fuel tanks and attempted to fulfill his goal by finally and without adversity to place the grenade's safety pin between of his teeth and pull it off to explode everyone within the wrecked van.
However, Jackie, quickly ignoring the still painfully itchy bite wound in his arm and his bleeding nose, quickly reached and successfully grabbed to the handle of the machete, before he then lifted it up and above of his head and then swung it towards the Savior's right arm to chop it off, as his last attempt to prevent the Savior to blow them all up to the sky!
However, as he was so close to chop off the Savior's arm, Savior suddenly and completely unexpectedly let out the painful throaty cry out of his mouth that startled Jackie and got him to turn his full attention from chopping off his arm to his faces...
...but Jackie didn't halt his machete but allowed his from the machete's handle holding hand and the machete freely to fall down towards the Savior's arm.
However, as the Savior started to cry out of the pain, he straightened up on his knees and pulled by reflexes his grenade holding hand out of the way of Jackie's machete, timely avoiding it's blade, and leaving the machete's blade to swing the empty air.
However, Jackie's machete's blade's tip managed to partially slice off some flesh from the Savior's arm from beneath of his wrist, causing the Savior to loose his firm grib from the grenade and eventually drop it to the ground.
Jackie's machete's blade kept falling straight down, until it sunk deep into the Savior's right shin, reaching to the bone.
The Savior then stopped his painful crying but started instead to grit his teeth in pain and let the throaty sounds out of his mouth as some blood started to drain out of his mouth.
Zoe, who had already managed to wipe off the Savior's spit out of her faces, followed this from aside!
Both Jackie and Zoe eyed the suffering Savior, until they landed their eyes a bit down from the Savior's head and noticed that there was the long blood-covered katana's blade thrusted through of the Savior's upper body, with its blood-covered tip coming out from the Savior's right side.
Jackie and Zoe followed then with their eyes down the blade to its handle, until they completely locked their eyes to Rick's last location, seeing Rick standing on his knees behind of the Savior and holding with both of his hands from the katana's two-handled handle, revealing to them the reason to the Savior's sudden cry out of pain.
Rick then pulled the blood-covered katana outta the Savior's flesh, allowing the Savior's badly mutilated body to fell into limp, as his arms fell to hang from his shoulders, and the Savior's body eventually fell on its stomach to the ground and next to the grenades and the fuel tanks.
And after the loud thump against the ground, the Savior remained to lie in the ground, completely motionless.
The awkward silence then fell upon the victorious trio and the supposedly dead Savior's corpse.
The trio then locked their eyes to the Savior's motionless body and remained to look at it for a while.
"Is that fucking son of a bitch... dead?" Zoe asked from the others.
Neither Jackie nor Rick answered to this.
For a couple and half of a minute, they kept looking at the Savior's badly mutilated and supposedly dead body with the suspicious looks in their faces, a bit expecting him still living, despite from his mortal wound, and rise again from the ground...
...because even though the Savior was mortally wounded by their hands during of their struggle for the possession over the grenades and he was not wearing any protective gear to protect him from receiving a new fatal strikes from the trio, the Savior had still stubbornly and fiercely fought back against the pain, the certain death and all three of them at the same time.
However, soon, Rick broke the silence.
"We have no time for this. There's still the Saviors outside of the wrecked van, and we need to gather everything what we can carry with us and get out of here before they reach here." Rick said, as he cleaned Michonne's sword from the Savior's blood and placed it back to the sheath, which he placed to hang on his back... so that he could later to hand it back to Michonne once he finds him.
Rick then took his Colt Python revolver from the ground and placed it back to its own sheath in his belt. And he also picked from the ground his ax, which he placed to hang from his belt in the right side of his waist.
"Zoe, you start to pack the remaining bags with the food and ammo, while I'll keep watch from the back." Rick said, as he tossed two empty bags to Zoe, who immediately brough them close to the boxes, in which they kept their canned foods, bottles of water, medical supplies and some extra ammunition and started to pack them into the bags.
And then, Rick turned to Jackie... though before he managed to say a single word, Rick's attention was caught by the injuries from the sharp-edged or -pointed shards of windscreen and the Savior's teeth... not to mention about that he had overheard Jackie's left arm getting dislocated from the rough ride from the road to the forest.
"Jackie, I need you to watch Zoe's back while she's packing the bags, from both of the cabin and the giant hole in the ceiling, in case if the Saviors try to surround us, while I'll keep watch in the rear side's doors." Rick said.
"But then when it's time to run away from here, are you capable to carry the fully filled bag or hold even the handgun with your arm? Or do we need to check your wounds on your hand and put it in the carrier?" Rick added
Jackie let out of his mouth the loud and yet a bit from Rick's question offended snort
"Listen, prick! Do not underestimate the Street dogs abilities to do the things, even though they might have the flesh in their arms in shreds from the sharp-edged and -pointed shards of the broken windscreen, their limbs dislocated and extremely sore after being placed back to their place or their arms and legs full of the nasty and bloody bite marks from the teeth of nasty dogs and the fucking Savior!"
"I once got my legs badly hurt from the bites, claws and fangs of three nasty wild dogs, while got surrounded by those undead monstrosities, but albeit badly wounded, half-cripple, outnumbered and with no ammo, and I still managed to kill the wild dogs and all abominations around of me with ease. I survived from that experience, and why? Because I followed the Street dogs three laws: Every dog takes care only for themselves, Fight and live or don't and die, and Scars and pain makes you even stronger and tougher! And among of our rules is also the one, which you have already witnessed us to adhere firmly back in that house before the firefight... DO NOT TRUST TO ANYBODY, NEITHER EVEN FULLY TO YOUR OWN FRIENDS! Every Street dog among us must adhere to these vital rules to learn to take care of ourselves and to survive on their own without anyone's help, even if they are in the verge of death, if they wish to survive! Yet there is no place among of us for the weaker and softie ones. Even one of us who is either of these two things, makes us all weaker. By following these vital rules while moving in our territory with those everyday undead abominations around claiming the weak ones as well as do our enemies, we'll erase all the softness and weakness from our ranks to make ourself both physically and mentally stronger and tougher to survive through of this fucking New-World-Order... you kill or you die, or you die and you kill. So, if you want to prove us that you're not with them, then don't you worry about my wounds but focus rather to do your own part of guarding duty." Jackie said with the firm and a bit rude tone...
...before he then picked from the ground into his arms a couple of Mossberg 590 "Compact Cruiser" shotguns into his hands and settled into the watch, aiming with both of his weapons through of the entrance to the van's cabin and to the hole of the ceiling of the van's backside.
However, the weight of the shotgun in his wounded and apparently sore arm made Jackie to grin his teeth in pain, and he seemed to be unable to lift the weapon into the same level with the another shotgun he held in his right hand.
However, Jackie stubbornly ignored the pain in his left wounded arm, though because of the Saviors, he was forced to lay his wounded arm onto his left knee, so that he got a bit better aiming with it.
"I'll shall show those motherfuckers that even wounded dog can bite back and very hard!" Jackie said, as he stood to watch the remaining bags packing Zoe's back with the shotguns, ready to blast anyone who dared to come near of them with the hostile intentions.
Rick had to grant it to Jackie, that he and his people were mentally iron and physically as psychologically strong and determined survivors, among of which the weakness, softness, fear and arrogance had no place.
Whatever traumatic event they have experienced in the hands of the Saviors, which has triggered their bitterness, despise and burning hatred towards Negan and his the Saviors, including strengtening their distrust towards the outsiders of their people...
...Rick already saw very invaluable allies from the Street dogs, through of Jackie and Zoe, for all of their common cause... to rid the world off from Negan and the Saviors and create the better world and the future for their peoples... including to avenge all their loved ones horrible deaths at the hands of the Saviors.
However, Rick needed to get alive to meet their leeader, so that he could negotiate with Jackie's (and Billy's) father and the leader of their people, and and persuade him and his people to join his and his own people's side for the common cause... the End and the Downfall of the Saviors.
Rick of course knew that it would not be easy task to presuade the Street dogs to join to his side into the upcoming war against the Saviors, no matter how common were their goals and the causes for the long-awaited liberation from the Saviors tyrannical rule and from all the sufferings they have both experienced during of the slavery under of the Saviors rule.
However, for the better future without Negan and the Saviors, Rick had no other choice but just try his best and then just be satisfied with that answer what he gets from the Street dogs.
And with that, Rick turned to the rear gap, where the vehicles rear doors used to be, and aimed his Colt Python revolver towards the gap, ready to shoot anyone who even attempted to either pass the rear doors or peek inside.
However, once everybody's attentions were elsewhere, the Savior, who was supposed to be dead after receiving so many fatal strikes, until he apparently got killed by Rick after thrusting Michonne's sword through of his upper body fatally wounding him, started to weakly and slowly move his fingers.
To be continued...
Fourteenth cliffhanger...
Rick, Zoe and Jackie had survived from the brutal struggle with the Savior within the van, but they're still surrounded by four remaining and armed Saviors, and not to mention about the Savior, whom they just apparently killed, and who still moved his fingers in spite of everything... without anybody from the trio even noticing this happening.
What will happen next, we'll see it the next time.
I hope that you guys liked this chapter.
See ya in the next time.