The Walking Dead: A New Day Gone Bye

Chapter 21 – Choices...

Slowly, Lee began regaining conscience. His eyelids, at their own rhythm, stretched out in short spans, permitting Lee to see what was happening. The first thing he descried was a pile of those salt licks. Glenn was curled into a ball on top of them, while Larry was roaring profanities, as he bashed the door with his bare hands. Lilly was bent in the corner, barfing the dinner she ate. Kenny paced around the room in a nervous wreck, blaring Larry to stop. T-Dog was inspecting the entire room for any possible exits. Doug was also present, he was throwing up into an empty box.

"Lee!" Clem ran to his side, as she noticed the man awakening.

Lee adjusted his body and butted his back against the wall behind him properly. His sore bones crackled in reaction. He shook his head, to clear his dazzled mind, and glanced at Clementine. "It…it was a person! They tried to make us eat a person!"

"But you didn't do it…" Lee looked on the bright side.

"No…" Clementine mumbled with a lowered head.

"The rest of us did, goddammit!" Larry hollered, facing Lee. His voice was extremely loud and infuriated. "And now we're fuckin' stuck in this shit cell!"

"Dad, please…now's not the time." Lilly beseeched, leaned against the wall, battling her nauseated guts.

"Lee, those sons a' bitches tossed us inside a fuckin' meat locker!" T-Dog informed him with a shout from across the room. "They kept Rick and the others back at the house. We gotta go save 'em!"

"OPEN UP YOU SONS A' BITCHES!" Larry howled in an unstoppable wrath, banging twice at the door with his enclosed fists.

"Dad!" Lilly screamed at her father again.

Larry halted his mission and marched towards Lee, who was still sitting against the wall. He was recuperating from the vertigo that made his head twirl. "This thumbsucker here was the one who brought us here in the first place!"

"Will you all just shut the fuck up?!" Kenny commanded, getting desperate with all the argues. He paced around the room in a nervous state, his hands posited in his hips.

"I'm scared." Clementine lowly confessed, as Lee gradually stood up.

"Don't be. I'm gonna find us a way outta here." Lee reassured her.

Lee looked to his side, and saw Glenn who was sobbing loudly. He walked up towards him and gently touched him in the shoulder. "Glenn? Everything alright?"

Glenn slowly rose his head. His wet eyes were blurting out tears non-stop, his cheeks were rufescent and he sniffled between hiccups. Snot dipped off the tip of his nose. "Jim…! They…they fuckin' killed Jim, Lee!"

"I know. But we're gonna find a way outta here." Lee told him with his arms folded. Glenn returned his head into the carapace he was forming.

"For cryin' out loud, kid! Stop being a baby!" Larry harshly remarked. "Jim's gone! Nothing's gonna fuckin' change that! If you actually got on your feet and helped me kick this door down, now that would actually help!"

"Larry, please! That's enough!" Lee instructed him to shut up. Larry let out a hiss, before he went back to uselessly punching the door down.

Lee waved his head, disgusted by Larry's asshole attitude. At the same moment, Doug was shuttering the box he vomited in, and as he used the shelves to pull himself up, he kicked it to the side. Lee walked up to him as the nerd wiped the corner of his lips.

"Doug, are you okay?" Lee inquired with worry.

"Better now." He said, though Lee wasn't very convinced. "I still can't believe…Jim. He was a really nice dude. He lost his family…back in Atlanta. He…didn't deserve that."

"Yeah…those St. Johns. We're gonna get back at them." Lee replied with a cogent expression.

"That's not what's worst…" Doug declared with a sad tone. He clutched his suffering stomach, his other arm supported his body against the shelf. "I mean…I thought that Shane…it was an exception. I thought that…maybe…people still had good inside them. Even in this world." Doug diverged his gaze at nothingness. "I suppose Rick has the right mentality. Can't trust anyone."

Lee nodded in a wise manner, taking in what Doug was saying. He deemed better to go back at seeking for a way out. T-Dog and Kenny seemed to already have searched the walls, roof and behind objects, so the only thing Lee saw was the AC hung to the wall.

He strolled towards it, grunting a curious sound. The AC was a huge three-dimensional rectangle that was held to the wall due to two screws. He conjectured that if he could get those off, he would be able to remove it. And luckily find a tunnel out of that mess.

His brain was immediately zapped with sudden realization. "The multitool!" He slid his hand into his back pocket, but his hope was murdered when he sensed it empty. "Of course they took it. Shit!"

"I'LL…I'll…I'll break the door down…" Larry stammered, his voice showing that he was becoming more fatigued.

"Dad, please…" Lilly once again begged.

Suddenly, Larry shrieked in pain as he gripped his torso with all of his strength. All of the survivors turned their look towards him. Larry grasped his striped shirt with all of his strength, essaying to dissipate an invisible pain.

"Dad, easy, easy…" Lilly smoothed him, as she neared closer to him. The old man keep groaning in pain, as his daughter approached and set her hand on his shoulder.

"Ergh…" Larry grunted, staggering a few steps back before his eyelids stretched out and his face froze. "Oh my God…" He murmured, as his body collapsed on the floor with the weight of a bull.

Lilly hurried near him, leaping on her knees next to him. The moment she saw the giant fall, her heart began racing a mile and already felt her tear-ducts filling up with the salty liquid. She gripped his shoulders, searching for any signs of life, but the ancient's face was bleak like a white sheet of paper. "Dad please! No! Fuck! I think he's had a heart attack." Lilly stated in a visible panic, as she compressed Larry's chest repeatedly, performing CPR.

"Shit! Don't we got any more pills fo' him?!" T-Dog demanded with a concerned expression, passing a hand through his bald head, that resembled a cue ball.

"No! I ran out yesterday!" Lilly spewed and stuttered, getting teary-eyed.

"Is he dead?!" Kenny asked with his brows furrowed.

"He's not dead!" Lilly responded, not even wanting to consider her father's demise.

"Fuck…if he's dead…" Kenny insisted.

"He's not dead! Someone, help me!" Lilly urged, maintaining her stance.

"Goddammit! T-Dog, help me!" Lee uttered, as he dashed beside Lilly. T-Dog followed him and kneeled on the opposite side. Glenn backed away in the pile of salt licks, with a greater grief, until his back struck the wall. Doug gasped, and clouted his mouth with his hand. Clementine was shrunk in the corner, chewing her fingernails like there was no tomorrow.

Lilly drew away her hands from Larry's softened torso, and Lee intervened. He intertwined his hands and injected them against his chest. He remembered a couple decades back, when some nurses intervened in his school and taught them the basics of CPR. He was now faintly remembering those memories. Use the heel of the hands to compress, keep the respiratory airways clear and give the hurt person some oxygen if necessary.

"T-Dog, blow some air into his mouth!" Lee ordered with haste, just as a precaution.

"The hell?! I ain't gonna…" T-Dog replicated with disgust, his twisted nose showing that he was baffled with what Lee had said.

Lilly however, with no hesitation, immediately placed her mouth against Larry's. Softly, she interjected oxygen into Larry's lungs with short exhales. Lee kept pressing, while T-Dog felt a bit guilty about not being able to do what could have saved Larry's life.

The moment Lilly broke contact with Larry, the latter's eyes sprang open, and a long breath forced its way into and out of his lungs. The man coughed with difficulty, as he enjoyed a few more inhalations. "Dad!" Lilly happily cried, a tear of joy leaking down her face. She arched and grasped her father in a crushing hug. Larry kept concentrating on resuming his breathing, as he slowly processed what happened. "I…I thought I'd lost you…"

Larry smirked for a brief second, placing a feeble hand on her shoulder. "I…I would never leave you pumpkin."

"Thank God…" Doug whispered, sighing and placing a hand on his heart to soothe it.

Lee cracked a large grin, viewing in jubilation the father and daughter reuniting. The survivors exchanged a few looks amid them, feeling more cheerful since it wasn't everyday they had the luxury to resuscitate a dead friend.

"I'll stay with him." Lilly muttered to Lee, with a peaceful voice as she caressed Larry's stubbly cheek. "You guys find a way out of here and make those motherfuckers pay."

Kenny, Lee and T-Dog nodded. "I think I have the solution." Lee declared. "That AC back there. If I manage to unscrew it, there might be a passage through there."

"Seems like a long shot." Doug commented with some negativity.

"We gotta try. We…just gotta." Kenny agreed with Lee. "But we don't have anything to take them screws off."

"In…in my pocket…" Larry shrieked with a weak voice, releasing a few more acute coughs. "I got some coins. Might do the trick."

Lilly fished into his pocket, rummaging through it, until she pulled out two quarters and a dime. She lent her hand to Lee. "Here."

Lee picked up the coins, examining them. He gaped at the screws, and deemed that the dime was the most appropriate size for them. "Okay, man, get that thing off!" T-Dog encouraged, enthusiastic to get out of that prison.

"RICK!" A muffled and wry voice called out. "RICK?! Fuck, he's not waking up. They really hit 'im hard."

Rick, at his own faltering pace, began opening his eyes. The first thing he noticed was an annoying pain in his jaw. He moved it around a bit, and was quickly stopped by the woe that shot through his skull. He frowned his eyebrows from the ache. The veins and arteries in his head were pumping blood at a sonic speed, and his temple pulsated with ache. As he got his bearings, he jerked his head to the right.

"Rick! Thank God you're awake." Allen exclaimed in joy. Rick found himself in the same room as where he had found Jim. Along with him, there were Allen, Jacqui, Donna, Andrea and Carol. All of them were sitting and chained to a chair, their hands tied behind their spines. Rick noticed that the bed had been pushed aside, and the survivors were arranged in a random formation.

He was more shocked to perceive a trail of blood leading from the main door all the way to the bathroom door (the one that used to be camouflaged by the bookcase).

"Fuck…what's happened?" Rick asked with a hoarse voice.

"Those motherfuckers tied us and brought us up here." Jacqui angrily said.

Carol's eyes were redder than normal, and the pair of rivers of tears streaming down her cheeks were visible, since she couldn't wipe them away. "They…they took Sophia with them…! My baby girl…"

Andrea was calmer, and she let out a sigh. "They shoved us all up here. They took all of the kids with 'em."

"What about Lori and Carl?!" Rick quizzed with extreme worry, gawking around the room but he could only find their absence.

"They took 'em downstairs along with Katjaa." Donna jeered, an impatient expression painted in her face. She squirmed with her restraints to no avail. "I swear, if they so touch Billy and Ben…"

"Don't worry. They won't place a finger on them." Allen asserted with a strong conviction on his voice.

"Okay, guys…no time to lose." Rick sputtered, moving with his restraints behind his back to examine the tissue. It was a versatile yet rough matter. "Rope. We're tied with ropes. Anybody got anything that'll cut through these? Anyone?!"

Rick wasn't very surprised that nobody answered. "Fuck." Rick hung his head in despair. He rolled his eyes to the bed. Measuring the distance between its edgy corner and the chair, he deemed that with a good bounce, he could hit the rear of the chair against the corner, and perhaps break it. "Okay, Allen…I'm gonna do this…you follow me?"

"Yeah, sure." Allen concurred with a recurrent nod.

"When I'll swing my chair, you're gonna kick me so hard until you send me to the Jupiter. Got it?" Rick elaborated, stamping shocked and confused expressions on the persons' faces.

"Wait, what good will that do?" Jacqui enquired.

"This chair is somewhat creaky." Rick observed with an eagle-eye. "If I manage to break this shit into splinters, I'll manage to release us."

"Won't they hear the racket?" Donna proposed.

"Hey, we gotta try something!" Rick replicated, as he glanced at Allen. "Ready?"

"Yeah." Allen nodded again.

"Okay. Here goes nothin'." Rick mumbled with a sigh. He attached the bottom of his shoe to the ground. With a swift and potent move, he swung in Allen's direction. The chair's articulations squeaked as it toppled to the side, before Allen placed his foot on Rick's right arm, and then shoved him in the opposite direction.

Rick began falling, gravity tugging him from below, to the left. He saw the pointy corner of the bed approaching his face, and he closed his eyes, wishing for the best. The corner missed his ear by millimeters. Instead, it struck Rick's chair, which croaked and grated as it dismantled from the impact, like a really venerable book that was turned to dust when touched by someone.

"Holy shit!" Donna hammered, as she witnessed the chair being crushed to pieces.

Rick coughed, the dust of the splinters lifting up. Due to the fact he couldn't use his hands to protect the fall, he had banged his head pretty hard. Plus, the floor was wooden. But one thing was sure; the chair was broken to oblivion. Splinters and chunks of it were scattered across the chamber.

"It worked…" Allen mumbled in astonishment.

Rick got up, examining the room. He jumped on the bed, before he began straggling with the cuffs, to pass them below his feet and onto his frontal side. "What the hell you doing?! Ain't no time to relax!" Jacqui scolded.

Rick finally managed to slip his wrists over his feet, before he tiptoed towards Allen. "I was putting my hands in a better position!"

Rick squatted behind Allen's chair, unknotting his restraints with ease, like they were shoe laces. Allen sighed in relief when he felt his slightly damaged wrists free. Allen spun around to Rick, before he took off the cop's restraints.

Rick swooped the sweat off his forehead, before he glanced at the bathroom door, and a thought popped into his mind. "Allen, free the girls. I'll be right back."

Staggering towards the door with hefty steps, Rick opened the door. He was shocked with what he saw inside, albeit he already knew he'd find it there. Jim's cadaver was lying on the floor, but his eyes were open, empty like a pair of moons. His extremities had short spasms, and a teensy moan escaped his mouth. It shot a brief glare at Rick. Everything about his person was gone. In those vacant eyeballs, he didn't recognize the man known as Rick Grimes, and his legacy of a man had been transformed into an organic robot with no life.

Rick sighed, already fighting the tears emerging in his eyes. With great sadness, he placed the heel of his foot on Jim's temple that was covered by a grey, stale skin.

He shifted his closed gaze away, as he buried his boot deeper into Jim's skull. The undead mechanic groaned louder, like a cat whose neck was being strangled, before the spasms stopped and his eyes were staring at a non-existent void. A jet of blood gushed out of the small crater Rick had dug in his cranium.

"Goodbye Jim…your fight's over."

Lee heard with pleasure the last of the screws echoing a metallic sound off the ground. He stored back the dime into his pocket, before he turned to Kenny. "Gimme a hand, will you?"

Both Kenny and Lee positioned their hands on the AC. They dragged it out of the wall, that made a raucous sound as it scrapped against the metal of the wall. Once it was loose, they threw it on the ground, not being able to hold it any longer. The survivors peeked at the wall, and were relieved to see that there was a duct to pass through. But their optimism vanished when they noted that it was quite tiny, and no adult would squeeze through that.

"Well, there's our way out." Kenny conveyed, scratching his horse-show moustache. "Looks like it'll probably lead right into that back room."

A brief flashback of those horrid images of bloodied tools and gore flashed through Lee's mind. "It's too small to fit through."

"I can do it." Lee and Kenny turned to Clementine who was volunteering, although she didn't seem very heartened. Lee crouched in front of her. Her lips were warped, another sign of her dread.

"You know you don't have to do this Clementine." Lee confided.

"I know. I just want to get out of here." Clementine consented with a nod.

"This WILL get us outta here." Kenny bolstered further.

Clementine silently stared at her toes for a while, as if in pondering. "Okay."

Lee still felt a bit bad about endangering Clem like that, but he knew that it was necessary. He gripped Clementine by her armpits, and then elevated with velocity and inserted her inside the passage. Clem glimpsed at Lee, Kenny and T-Dog, who were all waiting in the meat locker. "What do I do when I'm out?"

"See if you can get to the other side of that door and open it." Lee apprised, eyeing the door as an illustration.

After she heard that, she began crawling along the duct. The second she disappeared from Lee's sight, his heart pounded faster. Everybody waited impatiently, listening to the echoes of the footsteps inside the passageway. A nervous tension boiled among them, the anxiety peaking higher at each second.

Their faces became crooked when they heard the girl's gasp.

Their jaws dropped, becoming more hyperactive. They heard something else. Someone or something was heading towards the door. A few more endless seconds passed, until the door handle was pulled and somebody entered the room. Clementine.

"Are you okay?! Did anyone see you?!" Lee questioned in a row.

"No. But there's a man outside." Clementine debriefed with a mutter.

Kenny didn't waste any time marching over to the outside world. Lee peered at Doug. "Keep an eye out here, okay?"

"Uh…fine…" Doug said, with his arms crossed.

"You stay here, okay?" Lee told Clementine, stroking her hat. "C'mon, T-Dog."

As they waltzed inside the adjoining room, the same feeling of eeriness crept inside them. Lee had already seen this before, but imagining the ghost of Jim suffering through those splatters of blood and sickening experiments…it just made him disgusted. Through a barricaded window, Lee could see that it was night outside, the sky being totally darkened. It was cloudy, and a massive deluge crumbled upon the Earth.

T-Dog and Kenny studied the room in disturbance. "I told you there was something wrong with this room. It's a goddamned human slaughterhouse!"

"I don't want to imagine what they did to Jim here…" T-Dog admitted with sorrow. "They're a buncha fuckin' sickos."

Once Theodore finished that sentence, the three men squatted, in order to be stealthier. "Okay guys…here's the plan." Kenny rumbled to the group, beside the dual doors that used to be shut by a padlock. T-Dog took the chance and grabbed a sickle off the table to serve as a weapon. "We're gonna sneak up on the bastard real quiet. He seems so caught up in his own rant he won't see us coming. Then we take 'im down and head for the house. Save the others."

"Seems good. Let's go." T-Dog conceded.

Kenny was the one to take point, while T-Dog was derriere on their convoy. Kenny opened the door with delicateness, cautious about its rusty hinges. Lee inspected the scene. It was the same barn from before, with its stretching rows of cubicles. In the main doors – that were ajar – they could see Danny sitting outside the barn under the rain, resting upon a haystack. His precious sniper rifle was laid right at his side.

The three men glanced at one another, preparing for the kill. They began slithering towards their target, their hands prepared for any fight.

However their operation was blown when Andy St. John appeared to talk to his brother. "Dan, what're you doing out here?"

"Oh shit!" Lee mumbled to himself. The first instinct that came to their heads was to slip inside one of the compartments. They were crammed inside the small space, but they managed to fit. The scene was accompanied by an oversized feeding through, and mounts of hay spread around, which rustled under their feet.

"Just guardin' the place, like you said."

"Well, quit sittin' around in the rain like a damn weirdo! Momma says that we can't keep that many folks alive and not expect trouble. Pick one to keep and kill the rest."

"Can I pick which one to keep?"

"Not the little one. Not enough meat on her to trade."

"I'll keep an eye on Danny. Be ready to act when I say." Lee buzzed to the others.

"See what he's doing now." Kenny murmured to Lee.

Lee set his hand on the stable door of the stall. He opened it to a short gap, but was greeted with the barrel of Danny's gun hustled right in front of his face.

Lee immediately reacted, by leaping onto his feet and pushing the gun away. The weapon fired right next to Lee's ear, making him deaf with a ringing noise. Lee clasped onto his damaged ear, as Danny straggled to reach for another bullet.

T-Dog then burst out of the stall, his arm erect and with the sickle firm in his hand. Danny didn't even have time to dodge the chop T-Dog sent towards him, which sliced his nipple. Danny staggered backwards, defenseless, when T-Dog spotted an active bear trap right behind his foot. T-Dog hit Danny again with the butt of the sickle, luring Danny's foot inside the bear trap. The two spiky, metal claws enclosed on his ankle, making the farm worker collapse on the ground with an agonized whimper.

Danny latched onto his hurt ankle. The blades had cut right through the tissue of the pants and a splash of blood squirted out of his wound. Lee recomposed himself as he rose onto his feet.

"Where's my family, asshole?!" Kenny demanded in a threatening stance.

"You…you can't have 'em…we…we need the vet!" Danny wept in extreme pain.

Kenny directed himself to the exit. "Lee! C'mon!"

"I'll be out in a second." Lee reasserted with a raged expression on his face. His eyes were narrowed, his brows stiff and his teeth grinding against one another.

Kenny ignored him, and sprinted out the barn and towards the house, desiring to get back his family.

"What the hell do we do with this motherfucker?" T-Dog quizzed with his arms folded, as he picked up Danny's rifle. Thunder rumbled and resounded outside.

Lee grasped a nearby pitchfork swiftly, and utilizing two hands, he neared the four pins just a few inches from Danny's face. "You…you understand now don't ya?!" Danny asked, in a psychotic joy. "You can have me! It's how the world works now…give part of yourself…so others can live!"

"Cannibalism is not the answer!" Lee replicated with an angry tone. "Aren't the walkers eating enough of us?!"

"You gotta keep me alive!" Danny remarked, glaring up at Lee and T-Dog. "If you kill me, the meat gets tainted! You can't eat it!"

"You're already tainted!" Lee reflected, the pitchfork wobbling in his palms.

"You don't have what it takes!" Danny provoked with a twitched grin. Despite what he had said, he lowed his head in fear, expecting a death blow. "You ain't gonna kill me! Fuckin' coward!"

[KILL DANNY ST. JOHN] or [SPARE DANNY ST. JOHN]

A/N: Make your choice. Pitiful Lee or Monster Lee? Also, did anyone notice the "The 100" reference in there?