Chapter Twenty

There wasn't a lot that I could tell Carol, but I did what I could. I told her that Rick, Michonne, Daryl, and Carl had hopped the fence in order to go through the back entrance and that Rick had asked me to stay behind so that there would be someone on the outside, just in case.

I told her about the bag of weapons Rick had hidden in the woods. I didn't think the Terminus snipers that were in the forest had seen it, because they hadn't said anything about it and I didn't see any of our guns or the machete that Rick had put in there.

"We're going to make a distraction," Carol said, showing me a stash of fireworks she had in per pocket. "But we can't go in there like this. I don't think you saw all the walkers, you were running the opposite way. C'mon."

I didn't know what Carol had planned, what she meant by 'we can't go in their like this', until she caught a walker and took it down before cutting its stomach open.

"Oh, God, Carol…" I said, catching on. But she was in a hurry.

"We don't have much time, Livy."

I held my breath as Carol smeared walker blood and guts all over my back and face. I wasn't lucky enough to have a tarp like she did. I did her back for her, and then we did our fronts.

"Glenn and Rick did this in Atlanta." Carol told me. "Walk quietly and try not to draw attention to yourself, and they won't even realize we aren't one of them."

I really hoped, even in that moment before facing danger, we'd be able to find some new clothes for me later. We walked as quickly as we could through the horde of walkers without drawing attention to ourselves.

Carol was right, it was surprisingly easy. We made it back to the fence in what felt like no time at all.

We arrived just in time to see some of the people from Terminus drag Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Bob out of a train car. I had been hoping that our friends wouldn't be in Terminus. I was wrong.

"I'm going to shoot this into that propane tank," Carol said, holding up a firework. "If you move quickly enough, that should create enough of a problem and give you time to open all those train cars."

"You go ahead of me, over the fence. I'll come in with the walkers." I nodded to Carol that I understood. She was whispering so quietly that I could barely hear her, so that our new walker friends wouldn't catch on that we weren't one of them.

I waited for Carol's firework to explode the propane tank before hopping over the fence. As soon as my feet were on the ground, I stayed low—the explosion had opened a hole in the fence and I could see walkers coming in, and while it drew a lot of people towards it, there were still snipers poised on the rooftops.

Right then, it was safer for our people to be inside that train car, so I didn't immediately open the one that we saw the Terminus people take our guys from. I opened some others first, to add to the confusion. People come streaming and screaming out of them, adding to all of the noise.

I jumped when I heard gunshots, but when I looked up, the snipers weren't shooting. They were falling from their posts.

"Thank you, Carol," I said, going for the train car that most likely had our friends inside. I pulled the door open, but nobody came out. So I poked my head in.

"Hey, guys. I don't think you're aware, but there's a lot of bad shit going down out here, and your help would be greatly appreciated."

"Livy!" Carl said, coming forward. I realized, belatedly, that I didn't have any weapons to give them, but that was okay. They had some prison-looking stuff they must have made while in the train car.

"What the hell, y'all work fast. I wasn't gone but maybe an hour or two."

I ushered them all outside. There were a few people in there that I didn't know, but I didn't really care. The more people in that situation, the better.

At the same time everyone came out of the train car, Daryl and the others came running up. They did have weapons.

"Do I want to know why you're covered in walker guts?" Daryl asked me, handing Sasha a gun.

"I take it y'all haven't seen Carol yet, then," I said, sinking my knife into a walkers head. Since I was indeed still covered in guts and gore, I was able to move through the crowd of walkers more easily and clear a path for everyone else.

"Just follow me," I told them, leading them through the chaos and towards the hole Carol had made in the fence.

We were quickly back in the woods, where Rick took over to lead us back to the spot he'd buried the other weapons.

"We need to go back and finish them off," Rick said, digging the bag out of the ground with his hands. I nodded, but no one else seemed to agree.

"The fences are down," Maggie said. "They'll run or die." But I knew Rick's mind was not on Terminus but on Joe, and what almost happened to Carl.

Just then, Carol came running up to us.

"Did we get everyone?" She asked, right before getting hugs from everyone but me. Carol, thanks to her tarp, was walker blood-free. I was still covered in it.

"I don't know how you two did that, but I'm glad for it," Rick said, giving Carol a big hug.

"Um, Livy?" Carl asked, pointing to my arm. "What is that?"

I had already forgotten my arm, where Amanda had bit into it. At some point in all the mess, the rag had fallen off. Luckily, Carol had only spread the guts across my torso, legs, and face, so none of the walker blood had gotten in it.

"It is a person bite, not a walker bite!" I said, backing up because Michonne had already unsheathe her sword. "So don't cut it off! I need it!"

"It is," Carol said, reaching out to touch Michonne's arm. "I saw it happen."

"I guess when you're already a cannibal, it don't make much difference if the meat's cooked or not." Daryl said, shaking his head

"Wait, those bastards were cannibals?!" One of the people I didn't recognize, a big redheaded guy, asked. It was news to me, too. I mean, obviously Terminus was full of awful people. I just didn't have any idea how awful.

"We don't have time for this," Carol said. "We need to go get Tyrese, and let Livy wash up."

I had pretty much already forgotten about Tyrese and Judith.

"You're gonna walk with me even though I smell like dead people?" I asked Daryl. I had hung back to take up the rear simply because I was covered in walker guts. Daryl did the same though, falling into step beside me.

"Might as well," he said with a shrug, but he smiled over at me.

Carol takes us back to a cabin, where Tyrese is standing outside, holding Judith. Rick and Carl ran to her, hugging the baby between them while they both give her kisses.

"I took care of Martin," Tyrese said. I didn't have any idea who that was, but apparently he was dead. Tyrese wouldn't let us go in the cabin. He insisted we needed to move on.

So, with me still covered in walker guts, we move forward and away from Terminus.

"You're going to have to settle for a creek bath until we can find you some clothes. Sorry Livy," Rick said. He's smiling. I knew having Judith back would make him happy. Him wanting to go back to finish off the people from Terminus was forgotten.

"That's cool, I'll just be stealthier than all of y'all."

Being covered in walker gunk sucked, but I was entirely too happy to be with all of my friends again. And our new friends, who introduced themselves as Abraham, Eugene, Rosita, and Tara.

When we came to a sign on the outskirts of the woods that read 'Sanctuary', Rick picked up a handful of mud and fixed it so that it read 'No Sanctuary'.

Joe's group had been a bust, not that I had high hopes for it. Terminus was somehow even worse than Joe's group. I was really hoping that whatever we found next, they didn't like to murder and they didn't like to eat people.

That's not a lot to ask in the middle of an apocalypse, right?