As soon as turned he jumped, and I resisted the urge to smile as I lowered my gun, stepping out of the way towards Daryl.
I stowed my gun but kept my hand on it as the prisoners went out into the yard and followed Rick and the others out after them.
"Damn the sun feels good." the second biggest guy stretched his arms as everyone walked into the yard.
I ignored the conversation mostly and just watched the prisoners until the big guy picked up a stick and started poking at a body on the ground.
"So what is this like a disease?"
"Yeah, and we're all infected." Rick answered and they all looked at him.
"What you mean infected? Like AIDS or somethin?" the one white boy of their group turned around, crossing his arms insecurely. No matter how I look at him, he looks like someone who just walked out of the confederate army.
"If I was to kill you, shoot an arrow in your chest. You'd come back as one a these things." Daryl pointed to the body the big guy was poking. "It's gonna happen to all of us."
"Ain't no way these robin hood caps are responsible for killin' all these freaks." shook his head, not believing us for a second.
"Must be 50 bodies out here."
Good. Keep that underestimation up.
"Where'd you come from?" He walked towards Rick.
"Atlanta." Rick answered, his machete held loosely in his hand. To anyone else it would look like he's just holding it but the rest of us know that hold, we do it ourselves. It's the hold where you could tighten your grip at a moment's notice and just swing it as hard as you need to.
"Where you headed?" he stalked towards Rick until he was almost exactly a meter from him.
"For now, nowhere." Rick shifted his weight into a more action-prone stance. The sort of stance you take when you're not gonna throw the first hit but you will damn well dodge and return serve with a snap of your fingers.
"I guess you could take that area down there by the water. Should be comfortable."
Aha, you say that like you have a say in what we do.
"We're using that field for crops." Rick denied calmly.
"We'll help you move your gear out."
This is hilarious. You can see the ego around this guy but I'd bet you that if we stuck him on the other side of these fences he wouldn't last ten minutes.
He might be able to hit a few walkers. Then he'd get over confident until that gun of his runs out of bullets. Then he'll get swarmed and go down just like everybody else who doesn't recognize their own limits.
"That won't be necessary." Rick answered just as even as before. "We took out these walkers, this prison is ours."
Well, worst case scenario, we can take all of these guys out right now if we have to.
Shoot first and they've got no other weapons, the rest of us have guns and way more life and death fight experience.
"Slow down, cowboy."
"You snatched the locks off our doors." The smallest (and second most aggressive) guy stepped up behind , like a little lap dog that thinks it's mean and tough.
"We'll give you new locks if that's how you want it." Rick turned it back on him.
This is like watching toddlers argue with an adult about why they should get to drive the car.
"This is our prison. We were here first." spread his arms out.
The simple truth is, they all would've died sooner or later. Starvation or by miraculously getting out of that room and straight into the nested maze of walkers that they'd have had no way to fight off.
If we hadn't come along, there's almost no chance any of them would've made it out of that room alive.
"Locked in the broom closet?" Rick scoffed. "We took it, set you free. It's ours, we spilt blood."
"We're moving back into our cell block." Does this guy have selective hearing or something?
"You'll have to get your own." Rick fired back immediately, voice dangerously level.
"It is mine. I've still got personal artifacts in there. That's about as mine as it gets!" He pulled his gun and in the span of a single breath, I yanked my own piece out, Daryl had his crossbow on him, T-Dog had his gun out and was right behind Rick, and Rick stood there without having moved so much as a muscle.
"Whoa whoa whoa—" Blondie jumped between them. "Maybe let's try to make this work out so everybody wins."
"I don't see that happenin'." stared Rick down.
"Neither do I." Rick looked up from his thinkin' face. I spied his hand resting on his python. Rick has one of the quickest draws I've ever seen, if he decides to shoot this guy, he won't stand a chance.
"I ain't goin' back in that cafeteria for one more minute."
"There are other cell blocks." Blondie tried to reason with .
An admirable effort.
He doesn't seem to want to fight us, and the two biggest guys look like they're staying out of this as well.
"You could leave." Daryl piped up next to me. "Try your luck out on the road."
...Normally I'd be with you on this, Daryl. But something tells me it's not a good idea to let these guys out of our sight. Best they stay where we can see them.
looked around, thinking. His eyes landing on the blood stains on all of our clothes and the weapons in our hands.
"If these 3 pussies and the woman can do all this, the least we can do is take out another cell block."
And fear of the unknown wins again.
"With what?" the big guy asked. Unlike here who wants nothing more than to stay in his "territory" like a proper gangster, he looks like he would rather leave than go back inside.
"Atlanta here will spot us some real weapons. Won't ya, boss?" I can't tell if that's a challenge, another pointless demand, or a poor trick to get us to give them more guns.
Rick stood silent for a moment. "How stocked is that cafeteria? IT must have plenty of food, 5 guys lasting almost a year."
"Sure as Hell don't look like anybody's been starvin." Daryl chimed in.
"There's only a little left." answered.
"We'll take half." Rick stated. "In exchange, we'll help clear out a cell block."
Sounds like a fair deal to me. So what's gonna go wrong this time?
"Didn't you hear him? There's only a little left." Shut your trap Yippie. You're worse than an unhouse-trained rat dog.
"Bet you got more food than you got choices." Rick put him down and turned his eyes back to the leader. "You pay we'll play. We'll clear out a block for you, then you keep to it."
"Alright." nodded.
"But let's be clear. If we see you out here, anywhere near our people if I so much as even catch a whiff of your scent," Rick stepped right up to him. "I will kill you."
Mr. Cartel stared back at him, his jaw flexing slightly as he clenched his teeth. "Deal."
There are so many holes in this arrangement.
"Pantry's back here." called as the rest of the prisoners filed into the room ahead of us.
"You never tried to break out of here?" T-Dog asked, curiously as we entered the room.
"We tried to take the doors off. But if you make one peep in here, then those freaks would be lined up outside growlin', tryna get in." The second biggest guy — Oscar, as I've learned — answered. "Windows got bars that He-Man couldn't get through."
What's a He-man? That sounds like a bad superhero name.
"Bigger than a 5x8." Axel (Blondie) added a positive note.
"You won't find me complaining. I'm doin' 15, my left leg would barely fit on one a those bunks." The biggest guy shrugged. I can't even imagine what it must've been like to have to live in a room that size.
"Yeah that don't call him Big Tiny for nothing." Thank you Oscar, I can finally stop calling him 'the big guy'.
"We done jerkin' each other off. Sick a waitin' back here." stuck his head back in from the doorway they all came out of when we first crashed into this room with Hershel.
The prisoners filed in and I saw Rick deliberately put his hand on his gun before following.
Daryl bumped my shoulder with his and jerked his head towards the door.
I nodded, knowing he's being pretty protective of me being too near these guys, since the stand off earlier.
I'll let it go this time since someone's gotta watch the door anyway, and I would actually prefer to stand in the more… open space. This place is claustrophobic enough for me.
I picked up my night vision goggles from the makeshift lanyard around my neck, keeping one knife in my hand and using my ears to keep an eye on the others in the back.
Only reason I feel comfortable enough to take my eyes off them is because T-Dog is still between me and them back there.
I watched the halls through the goggles which I should have been using last time but decided not to bring because I'd be the only person able to see and the flashlights of the others would be too much of a risk for blinding me.
Not this time though. Those flashlights were a mistake. The moving light was like a walker equivalent of using a laser pointer with a house full of cats.
A few minutes later and Daryl came over by me.
"Rick & T are gettin the food. Me and you are takin' this lot to get weapons and teach 'em how to kill walkers." He motioned at the prisoners.
I nodded, watching Rick pass some boxes of giant cans to T-Dog and my eyes bulged out of my skull.
Oh my god are those industrial sized canned goods?
Holy monkeys on a stick — we won't have to do runs for… I can't even do the math right now.
"We'll be good for weeks. There's a lot more where this came from." T-Dog winked at me.
My jaw dropped with a smile in pure elation.
No more desperate searching, we can take our time to scope things out and bring food we find back safely instead of having to risk it all or nothing every time we go out.
Oh this is gonna take so much strain off of our shoulders.
The walls and secure doors, the food. Rick was right. This place was a gold mine.
It feels like we're being paid for our suffering and for taking the chance on this place even though it wasn't easy.
The only things that could make this better is if we found ammo and medical supplies too.
And if we didn't have these prisoners to deal with.
To be fair though, if we found all of that and there wasn't some kind of hurdles we had to jump to get it, I'd be skeptical to think something wasn't headed our way to balance out our good fortune.
"Alright, let's go."
Daryl pushed off the doorway at Rick's voice and I handed him my goggles before the two of them took the lead, the prisoners in the middle, while I waited for T-Dog and brought up the rear.
Rick carried a few bags of what is that flour? Wheat? I don't know. While T-Dog carried a few of those boxes filled with cans as big as my head.
I kept a close eye on or Thomas I think someone called him, and the other aggressive guy. I'm not actually too concerned about the other prisoners. I don't think they'll do anything on their own, but if one of those 2 makes a move they'll probably follow just because they don't know us.
"Why does she have two knives?" Axel muttered to T-Dog in the dark hallway as we ventured through the tombs again, further than we've gone before.
T-Dog scoffed quietly. "Trust me man, if shit hits the fan, you'll find out."
Rick shushed them as we crept around the corner of a hallway.
"Man, it's too damn dark in here." Oscar (second biggest guy) up front complained.
"Gotta hold it up high. Out in front of you. You're gonna hear 'em before you see 'em." Daryl scolded him.
"It's comin'!" Axel practically shouted in front of me and Rick immediately shushed him.
Daryl held up his hand and everyone stopped. The shuffling echoed off the walls but there can't be that many of them with such a low volume.
I watched the silhouette of his fingers counting up as two walkers came shuffling around the corner. He didn't even make it to 2 before I jumped, someone starting a frickin' battle-cry and all of the prisoners rushed forward.
You can't be serious.
I watched, absolutely dumbfounded as they went 100% prison gang on two walkers, leaving the 4 of us veteran slayers standing here exchanging looks.
They're not even going for the head like we told them to — Axel is trying to shank a walker's gut to kill it….
Are they just thick or have my teaching skills fallen that far?
Happy final Sneaky chp of 2019!
I hope you guys had an awesome year and hope that next year will be even better.
And guess what, I know this rarely happens, but I actually accomplished not 1 but 2 of my resolutions this year!
That's never happened to me before and I'm super pumped about it!
I have reached a conversational level in a different language where previously I had only known a handful of words and a couple specific phrases. And I have learned how to play the piano. I'm still considered a beginner, but I did it! I can play several different songs and lots of pieces of other favorites and I'm starting to pick up new songs way faster than I used to, and it doesn't take me nearly as long to play them by memory.
Anyone got any new year's resolutions for 2020?
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed your escape from reality, and I'll see you next chp! Don't forget to Favorite, Review, and Follow for more!
If you like what you read, hop over and buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi! ( Miimaas) /miimaas
For those of you who don't know what it is, It's basically a tipping service so you can "buy a coffee" for a creator.
Tips would be much appreciated, or just check out my profile, drop a comment and say hi!