Rick watched, unmoving, as one would watch a car crash. He knew what was coming and he knew that there was nothing he could do in time. Natalie's eyes rolled back in her head and one of her arms was dangerously close to falling off the edge into the walkers' outstretched arms.
"Natalie!" Rick yelled once he found he could move again. Running he grabbed her arm, keeping it from falling. Below him at the front gate he could hear excited cheers and glanced down briefly as he wondered how exactly he was going to get Natalie down from the wall.
Glenn and Maggie were kissing and Bob was leaning against the wall, rubbing the blood off of his face with the inside of his shirt. All the walkers on their side were dead and Rick looked around frantically. There were only about twenty walkers around them, all of the remaining ones in the area having come over when Shane fell into them.
"BOB!" Rick screamed and the three at the gate turned quickly to look up at them. Maggie screamed as Glenn and Bob started sprinting over to them, Rick placing his hands over the gaping wound. Warm blood continued to pour over his hands making them slippery and as Bob arrived beneath them.
"How are we going to get her down?" Bob panted and Rick began to panic, completely unsure of how to do so.
"Maggie, Glenn go grab the blue tarp in the shed!" Rick yelled, watching as the pair spun around to get to the shed.
"What are you thinking?" Bob called to him and Rick merely shrugged, completely unsure.
"I have no idea!" Rick yelled back.
"Maggie, go get the blue tarp now!" Bob yelled and Maggie nodded, turning around mid-stride. Rick turned to stare at Natalie, blood running in sticky streams down her leg onto the wall and into riled up walkers' mouths. It was mesmerizing to watch the bloody waterfall and Rick began to feel his head growing lighter and lighter.
Maggie returned with the tarp, Bob and Glenn grabbing hold of two more of the corners. Rick grunted as he tried to roll Natalie over the side slowly. She hit the tarp with a thud and a low loud groan came out of her mouth.
As they began to move the body as fast as they could to Natalie's house, Rick scrambled to get down without breaking his leg. The doors to the middle house opened and excited people began to spill out of it, cheering happily until the quickly moving, bloody parade made their way past it and immediately silence fell over them. John made a strangled sound as Rick passed him and fell to his knees.
He looked to his left and saw a bloody mound that resembled his mother beside Andrea. Dead walkers were around them, blood covering the beasts' mouths and hands. Tears began to rush out of his eyes and for a moment he thought that he was going to pass out then and there. However, from atop the walker bodies in front of the gate he could see a familiar truck returning, something or someone sitting in the bed.
"Rick!" Lori called and he turned around slowly blood all over his hand.
"Go on Rick, I've got it from here," Bob replied as they began to make it to the door of the Adkins-Dixon household. "Herschel come with me please!"
"Beth, you too!" Herschel barked and the father and daughter walked quickly after them.
Rick made his way slowly over to the gate slowly as John wiped his eyes and hurried over into his house. He had never felt his heart so heavy or his head having so much pressure in it. He had a feeling that even if Natalie was alive now, she wasn't going to stay like that for long. He was about to lose his family like Natalie had not so long ago.
"What in tha fuck went on here?" He could hear Merle yelling from the other side of the pile of bodies. "Darylina git yer ass movin' now!"
"'N just what in tha fuck are you doin'? 'Overseeing' or some shit?" Daryl grumbled and for a moment everyone on one side of the gate wanted to keep them out there oblivious to what was going on inside. Rick closed his eyes and put his hands on his knees for a moment before sighing and moving towards the gate slowly. He made eye contact with Daryl who immediately stopped pulling a walker with his face smashed in off the road. "What?"
"Move the bodies as fast as you can," Rick ordered as two black people hopped out of the bed of the truck. "And who are they?"
"I'm Sasha and this is my brother Tyreese, they picked us up on the side of the road." Rick nodded to them and wordlessly they began to move bodies off the driveway. With Rick watching anxiously, the walkers were moved to the side swiftly.
"Daryl, Merle, you'll want to go to your house. Now."
"Why? Where in tha fuck's Natalie?" Daryl asked warily as he looked around the houses. "And what tha hell happened?"
"Natalie is in your house, now get there."
"What tha fuck?" Merle snarled before grabbing Daryl by the hair and beginning to pull him towards their house.
"Rick what happened?" Daryl demanded, turning his head slightly so he could see Rick look down, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Her, Shane and I got in a fight-its just me and her now." Rick said quietly but Daryl caught it.
"He-he was the one who hurt her?"
"Yes, he shot her in the leg. Lacey, Andrea, T-Dog and Dale are dead also." Daryl couldn't help but let his mouth drop open. One man managed to kill four people and injure another before he was stopped. How was that even possible?
"'N he's dead?" Daryl asked and he began to wonder what exactly he would do if he found out that Shane was still alive. Kill him was for sure. With his hands of course, Shane deserved to be cut into pieces and flayed while still alive for doing this to her. Natalie. The thought of her made Daryl break free of his brother and run towards their house. Merle followed suit, and just as they reached the driveway there was an ear-splitting scream from inside. They sprinted for the door and after a brief scuffle where they both seemed to forget that they had the same common goal, the brothers made it inside.
Behind them Rick turned to the brother and sister who were now regarding the scene before them warily. The sister was murmuring something to her brother, probably wondering how far they could get by themselves and not with this insane group.
"Welcome to the group."
Bob, Herschel and Maggie had taken Natalie into Bob's room since it was the only bedroom on the ground floor. Natalie was sprawled out on the bed, newly awakened and covered in sweat. The white linens around her leg were already drenched in blood and at the sight of it Natalie thought she would faint. She had seen worse but looking at her own blood always made her feel sick.
John had been at her side the entire time, hovering above her and fluffing the pillows anxiously. If the situation had been any different she would have laughed but it felt like someone was digging around in her thigh. Well it didn't just feel like it, Bob was searching for the bullet and he seemed to be having some difficulty with it.
"It ain't broken in pieces is it?" Natalie managed to gasp out and when Bob didn't respond right away she snarled and put her head back in the pillows. She had to grit her teeth and clench her fists to keep from screaming again when Bob hit a nerve. The Dixons were standing in the doorway and Natalie smiled slightly but it looked like a wince. "Daryl!"
He crossed the room in two strides and took her outstretched hand only for her to squeeze his hand in a death grip. There were tears in her eyes that she didn't want him to see so she turned away but couldn't help but look back a second later.
"Ah was 'fraid you 'n Merle were-FUCK YA BOB!" She yelled suddenly catching everyone off guard. Nervously she watched as Bob pulled a ragged piece of bullet of her leg with his long tweezer-like tool.
"I know, only one more piece left. I see it but I can't get it." Bob wiped his forehead as Maggie quickly put a damp washcloth on Natalie's brow.
"Please get Bob please I'll do anything. Make it stop." She managed to choke out before tears began to run down her face and there was no sign of them stopping anytime soon.
Daryl just squeezed her hand, sitting down and she closed her eyes, using her free hand to wipe the tears from her face.
"Listen Herschel do we have any morphine left in the safe?" Bob asked suddenly, the idea occurring to him as he reached back inside the wound.
"Yeah, not much but some. Should I send Maggie to go get it?"
"Yes if she c-" Bob began but Natalie interrupted.
"No, ah ain't gettin' hooked onta that shit." She hissed and gave the room a look that said if they did manage to get some inside her, she would kill them. "Don't ya even think about it."
"Okay Natalie we won't, I promise." Herschel put his hands up and Natalie squinted at him warily. As Bob pulled the last shard out Natalie screamed again and her eyes rolled back in her head, her head landing on his knee.
"How is it Bob?" Merle drawled from just inside the doorway and Daryl flinched, he had forgotten his big brother was there.
"I think she'll be just fine, she'll have a limp most likely though." Bob began to stitch up the gaping wound and Merle sighed.
"Ah'm goin' fer a fuckin' beer," He winked at Daryl before leaving, John nodding and hurrying after him. Herschel and Bob began to put their items away and Maggie left wiping the sweat off her brow.
"It could have been a lot worse, if he'd gone an inch and a half up he would have shot her in the hip and if he'd gone half an inch to the left he would have hit the femoral artery. Shane didn't pick the best place, clearly." Bob murmured the last part but Daryl heard it and Herschel moved slowly from the room. "I'll leave you here, just let me know when she's awake."
Once Daryl was sure that Natalie was unconscious and no one was creeping about the doorway, he hesitantly moved a few hairs away from her forehead before Bob entered suddenly and Daryl pulled his hand back as though a walker had bit him. Bob gave him an odd look before picking up a new shirt from the closet and exiting the room, glancing back at Daryl once before closing the door.
It was three hours later, the sun just beginning to go down over the carnage. Exhausted yet still working, most of the community were stabbing the walkers that landed in the moat. Lori was crying inside her house, holding one of Shane's old shirts in her hands as tears ran down her face. Fifty feet away, buried beneath tissues sat a pregnancy test, a pink plus displayed on the screen. At the thought of it Lori couldn't hold back a sob and she clutched the t-shirt to her chest.
Rick stabbed a walker in the head and suddenly felt as though he had lost all energy, he had a feeling he was about to pass out. Wiping the sweat from his brow he started to move towards the entrance to the houses. His legs were shaking and he had only made it ten feet when John exited the house searching for Rick. He moved stiffly with purpose and a scowl on his face.
"Natalie needs to talk to you," He barked and Rick couldn't help but slightly recoil. He had never seen John's eyes so puffy and red or heard him talk with such a tone. "Now."
When Natalie had awaken a half hour earlier she hadn't even said anything to John, Merle or Daryl who were all on their fifth beers.
"Natalie, you're awake, oh my god I was so worried-" John began to gush before he realized that Natalie was frowning. "What's wrong?"
"Shane put anti-freeze in the jello that Lori made and it killed T-Dog. He came back as a walker and killed Dale and they killed Andrea." She said montonously. "Shane knew that the anti-freeze would cause someone to become a walker and Rick knew."
"Ya don't mean that..." Daryl trailed off and she nodded.
"Yeah, they're keeping secrets and ah wanna fuckin' know what for." She ground out before clutching her leg.
"I'll get Rick." John murmured and quickly left the room.
