"You're up late" Beth mocked as I dumped myself next to her at the table in our cell block. What she did know was that I'd hardly been to sleep, I tossed and turned all night and didn't feel like seeing anyone this morning. Nightmares have taken over my life, along with the walking dead and a small blonde girl.
"Yeah, yeah" I waved her off pretending I'm not exhausted.
"He's lazy, ain't that right, Judith?" Beth asked a bouncing Judith on her lap in a childlike voice. Judith gurgled in reply before going back to the red cup she was busy playing with.
"I've known Daryl a long time so I've been called worse" I smirked. She laughed at me but her eyes were still on Judith.
Hershel cleared his throat to get my attention by the stairs and once I made eye contact with him, he signaled for me to join him. I got up and as I made my way over, I wondered what the hell he wanted to talk to me about without Beth hearing. I was suddenly nervous as fuck. "You okay?" I asked him once I stood in front of him, my voice sounding smaller than I had hoped.
"I'm fine. Legs are better than ever" He gazed down at his prosthetic legs with admiration, a smile forming. It went before it came, though as he looked over my shoulder to Beth who nonchalantly played with Judith, unaware that this conversation was about to take a turn into her direction.
When I realised he wasn't going to be the first to speak, I frowned in frustration. I wished people would stop beating around the bush. "What's wrong?" The words came out in an agitated tone but I was now a little worried because he seemed a little worried.
He opened his mouth to speak but a distant, muffled gunshot stopped us all dead in our tracks. "What was that?" Beth called out to us as she panicked.
"I have to idea" I answered her honestly. But I planned to find out. I jogged to my cell and put my holster around my waist in a hurry. Wrapping the hunting rifle over my back, I made my way back to Hershel, Beth and Judith. "I'm gonna go and take a look, will you guys be okay here?" I asked them, feeling a little bad that I was leaving them. But I'd lock the gate behind me so nothing or no one could get in, which made me feel somewhat better. Another few gunshots rang through the prison and I felt chills going down my spine.
"We'll be fine. I have a pistol somewhere if needed" I nodded at Hershel who seemed as calm as he always was. "You be careful" It sounded like he was warning me but I brushed it off.
Before I could make my way out, though, Sasha, Daryl and Tyreese barged through the gate, all out of breath and sweaty. "What the fuck is going on?!" I half yelled at them before they even had the chance to process anything.
"Walkers in D" Sasha informed us. Another shot rang through and Judith began to cry.
"We gotta lock this up, you comin'?" Daryl asked as the three of them made their way to the other side of the gate.
"Hell yeah" I joined them on the other side and Daryl locked the gate. After sharing a panicked glance with Beth, we all sprinted out the cell block.
"What about C?!" We heard Rick yell to someone just as we got outside to join them.
"It's clear, we locked the gates to the tombs" Sasha informed him, none of us stopping.
"It ain't a breach" Daryl growled and Rick ran after us.
Gunshots started getting louder and we were all gasping for air by the time we reach cell block D, but that didn't slow us down when we saw what was inside. Walkers roamed all over the cell block, eating away at barely dead corpses. The lucky ones had guns to protect themselves with while the unlucky ones were feasting away at one another. People were trying to flood out of the cell block, screaming and panicking on their way but I ignored them. There were walkers that needed to be put down and I intended to do just that. Running past the crowd, there were people stuck on the other side of the cell block. Adults, kids, even whole families. We came to their aid and took down the closest walkers. Karen was there, too, she helped us get the people inside their cells and closed the gates behind them. A walker got a man to the ground and dug his teeth into his arm as the man cried for help. I kicked the walker in the face, managing to get it to the floor, and shot it right in the skull. I dragged the man to his feet and swung his arm over me, half carrying him over to his cell. Carol helped him to his bed and I left her to it. There was a walker trying to make its way down the stairs but it fell most of the way down, gnawing at my feet. One bullet was all it took for it to stop moving.
"Are we clear down here? Are we safe?" I heard Daryl yell.
"Yeah" I told him as I took out the last walker. "Upstairs"
Daryl and I stalked upstairs, ready for anything to jump out of one of the cells. And of course, a walker jumped out at me, pinning me up against the wall. Before I could defend myself, though, his body went crumbling to the floor after I heard Daryl's familiar 'whoosh' of an arrow being released. After taking a deep breath, I looked down at my attempted murderer. I would've said it was a normal walker, but it's blood coated face told me otherwise. "Oh, that's Patrick" Daryl told me and Rick who had just joined us.
"Is this the kid that liked the Lego?" I asked them and Rick nodded, his eyes a little wild.
The atmosphere had change dramatically from this morning. The people who were usually happily chatting to one another in the outdoor kitchen were now lying on the ground as walker corpses or regular corpses. A few of us went around each body and put our knives through their heads to prevent them from waking up again. People were crying again, but instead of panic, this time it was grief because of the people they had lost.
As we were upstairs, there was one still banging on the bars of its closed cell. I caught a quick glimpse of it before Rick took it down and blood had streamed out of its eyes and nose, I'd never seen anything like it. Rick looked at me in frustration and ran downstairs. Glenn and I exchanged a confused glance and then I opened the cell that the freshly dead walker was in. "Whoa" I whispered as I kneeled next to it, examining it's blood coated face.
"What the hell?" Glenn's voice was a little shaky after today's events.
"I ain't ever seen anythin' like it" I told him, not tearing my eyes away from the crisp blood on the walker's cheeks. I didn't know this man, but it didn't make me feel any better about the situation.
Rick eventually came back with Daryl, Hershel, Bob, and Dr. S right behind him. Dr. S didn't hesitate to get a closer look along with Rick, both of them examining it's face. "No bites, no wounds, I think he just died" Rick told the doctor.
"Horribly, too" Dr. S replied. He must be a glass empty kind of guy.
"Choked to death on his own blood. Caused those trails down his face" Hershel chimed in from the doorway.
"I've seen them before on a walker outside the fences" Rick informed us.
"Same thing must'a happened to Patrick" I told no one in particular.
"They're from the internal lung pressure building up. Like if you shake a soda can and pop the top. Only, imagine your eyes, ears, nose, and throat are the top"
My eyebrows shot up out of surprise. "Wow, that's a nice thought, Dr. Happy" Sarcasm laced my voice and the doctor shot me a look.
"What, you want me to beat around the bush?"
I shrugged at him just as Bob asked him a question. "It's a sickness from the walkers?"
"No, these things happened before they were around. Could be pneumococcal. Most likely an aggressive flu strain"
"How could somebody die in a day just from a cold?" Daryl asked in his gravely tone.
"I had a sick pig, it died quickly"
"Pigs and birds, that's how these things spread in the past. We need to do somethin' about those hogs"
"Maybe we got lucky. Maybe these two cases are it" Dr. Happy almost hounded hopeful.
"I got a feelin' we ain't seen the last of this" I told them.
After a small silence, Hershel was the last one to speak. "All of us in here, we've all been exposed"
So I had been exposed to an obviously deadly virus and it didn't seem like there was much I could do to prevent me from catching it. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Here we are in the middle of the apocalypse fighting off vicious dead people and trying to to catch the flu.
I met the others in the library for an urgant council meeting. I still didn't know why they wanted me on this damn council, and I don't even know why I come at all, they don't even bring snacks to any of the meets. Seems kinda pointless to me. But we're all here now, so I thought I might as well stick it out.
"Patrick was fine yesterday, and he died overnight. Two people died that quick?" Carol began the meeting. "We'll have to separate everyone that's been exposed"
"That's everyone in that cell block" Daryl frowned.
"Don't forget about us" I reminded him, not being about to get the thought of our possible illness out of my mind.
"We know that this sickness can be lethal. We don't know how easily it spreads. Is anyone else showin' symptoms that we know of?" Hershel asked the group.
"We can't just wait and see. There are children" Carol argued.
"We need a place for them to go. They can't stay in D"
"We can use cell block A" Carol reminded us, her eyes slightly glazed over.
"Death row? Not sure that's much of an upgrade" Glenn's voice was small.
"It's clean. That's an upgrade" Daryl said bluntly. "Think that'll work for Dr. S?" He asked Hershel.
"I'll help Caleb get it set up"
Coughing coming from the hallways made us stop in our tracks. The six of us got up from our chairs and moved to the doorway to find Karen coughing into her hand as Tyreese walked her down the hall. "You don't sound so good" Carol told her.
The couple stopped walking. "We're just taking her back to my cell so she can rest" Tyreese told Carol politely.
"Tyreese, I don't think that's a good idea" Hershel warned them.
"Why, what's going on now?" Karen asked, looking worried.
"We think it's the flu or something. That's how Patrick died" Glenn's face told me that he didn't want to be the one to tell Karen that bit of information.
"Judith is in that cell block. She's vulnerable" Hershel took a step towards them. "Anyone that may be sick or even exposed should stay away"
"It killed Patrick?" Karen was confused.
"She's gonna be okay" Tyreese defended her. "Now that we know what Patrick died from we can treat it, right?"
"Don't panic. We're goin' to figure this out. We'll have Caleb take a look at you"
Karen sighed a shaky breath before speaking. "David from the Decatur group, he's been coughing too"
"I'll get him" Glenn told us, beginning to walk away. He quickly glanced behind him to Sasha. "There's some empty cells in the tombs, right?"
"Yeah, we'll meet you there" She called back to him and then he was gone.
"I'll get to burying the dead ones" Daryl told in a hushed voice.
"I'll help" I told him, immediately joining him by his side. His half nod of approval made me a little less queasy about burying the dead once again.
"You two wear gloves and a mask" Hershel ordered us and we both nodded before leaving them in the hallway.
We mainly dug in silence. We threw a few insults at each other like we usually did but we were both weighed down by today's events. Walker outbreak, a bunch of people dying, the return of the god damn black plague, it was like the universe hadn't thrown enough at us.
"So, this mysterious illness is like, super contagious, right?" I stopped digging and asked Daryl, I suddenly couldn't keep my thoughts to myself for some reason. He grunted in response. "Well, do you think we're sick?"
Daryl stopped digging now, too. He didn't wear the scowl he usually wore, his face was softer underneath the black bandana he wore over his nose and mouth. "Nah, we ain't sick" He went back to digging but I could tell his mind was somewhere else. "You're gonna be fine, kid"
I half smiled and half rolled my eyes at him. He hadn't called me 'kid' in a while. I got back to digging and let my mind wander again.
"Glad you were in there" Daryl's voice nearly made me jump, I hadn't realised Rick approached us from behind.
"Wasn't much use without my gun" Rick kicked a little dirt under his shoe.
"No, you were" Daryl reassured him while I sat on the edge of the grave I'd been digging and wiped my brow. "All this time you've been takin' off, you earned it"
"Yeah, man. Who knows where we'd be right now if it wasn't for you" I said with a quiet chuckle.
"Nah, it was all of us" Rick replied humbly.
"Nah, it was you first" Daryl told him sternly. "So you gonna help us figure this out?"
Rick's face was full of seriousness, now. He looked like he was asking for help. "I screwed up too many times"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I honestly couldn't give two shits how many times you've screwed up. You're good, Rick. The proof is all around you. You might think you've made mistakes but you bought us here and we ain't never been safer"
That made rick fall quiet, he wasn't sure what to say back. A cry for Rick made us jolt upright. Behind Rick, Maggie was screaming for us to come over where the walkers were pushing themselves up against the fence. It had been a problem for a while now but we thought we had it under control, obviously we were wrong. We threw our spades to the side and the three of us sprinted over. Maggie was already thrusting a metal pole through the nearest walker's heads but it wasn't enough. The fence was bending under the weight of the mass of walkers pushing against it. "The noise drew 'em out and now this parts startin' to give" I could barely hear Maggie over the walker's moans, and then she ran over to where the fence was giving out. I grabbed on of the tools that hung on the other side of the fence and joined her. If a few more walkers joined, these walkers would be on top of us, so we had to deflate this situation as quick as possible. Every walker I could reach, I pierced their heads with the stake I held. It still wasn't enough though, they grew more aggressive at the sight of us and the more aggressive they got, the harder they pushed. A few others had joined us now, all of us were lunging our weapons through the gate hoping to put a dent in this herd.
I don't know how long we were at it, I couldn't think over the horrible noises these things made but after a while, I heard Sasha call out "Are you seeing this?"
She grabbed all of our attention, not all of us stopped though. On the floor near her feet lay three bloodied up rats, parts of the body was missing, they'd been eaten. "Someone's feeding these things?" She asked in disgust.
We shouldn't have gotten distracted, because right above my head, the fence was dropping. It was so low, a walker had nearly climbed it's way to the top, using other walkers as steps. We all crowded to this part of the fence and started frantically killing them, hoping it might do some good. But there was no use, the middle part of the fence looked like it was ready to tear open, so we gave up on killing them and desperately started pushing back onto the fence. "It's gonna give" Glenn screamed. A walker pushed itself into the fence so hard that it's face split into four and dropped near my shoe. The fence posts began shaking fiercely and there was no hope anymore. Daryl told us all to get back so we let go of the fence and stood there and watched the walkers.
"The fence keeps bending like that, those walkers are coming over it" Sasha exclaimed.
"Or through it, the damn thing looks like its gonna pop" I called out over the sound.
I saw Rick thinking for a while before looking to Daryl. "Daryl, get the truck. I know what to do"
I stayed on the fence with Sasha and Glenn as Rick and Daryl loaded the pigs onto the truck. I hated this idea, but we didn't exactly have a choice. If those walkers got over the fence, there's a possibility that we would all die. Daryl and Rick drove outside the fence and Maggie shut it behind them. I watched them in the corner of my eyes and I kept on lunging my stake through walker heads. They stopped the truck not too far away and the hoard thinned out slightly as some of them made their way towards the others. The screams of the pig the Rick picked up was enough to tip me over the edge. I could barely hear it in the distance and over the moans but in my mind it was loud enough to make my ears bleed. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to block it out but it was deafening. The walkers that crowded around one place as Daryl and Rick drove off a little told me that he must've released the pig. I felt a soft nudge on my arm and Sasha told me to get the logs ready. Since there were only a few more walkers on the fence, Sasha and I grabbed a log each and pinned it in between the fence and the floor. After a few more logs, all of the walkers had gone over to eat the three pigs Rick had gave them. I felt like I had to throw up, but I knew Rick had just saved our lives. The fence was still hanging over slightly but with the logs, it wouldn't be moving much. But it wouldn't hold forever, we'd have to face this again, and soon.
