In the morning, the leaders of the communities – at least those who have arrived for the fair - gather around the longest table on the floor of Henry's pub. Daryl leans back against a nearby table, half-sitting on its surface, to listen, even though he isn't a Jamestown council member. Henry lingers, too, to clean up after his pub's big night last night. No one tells either one to leave.

"Fourteen days ago," Cyndie begins, "shortly after the mailboat and pony express both left – which is why your communities haven't heard about this yet – a group of us went hunting. Me, Dianne, Kathy, Leah, a few others. While we were out tracking a wild sow, we came across a group of walkers. At least, we thought they were all walkers. But when Leah got ready to drive her harpoon into one, it ducked, drew a knife, and stabbed her."

On Jamestown's side of the table, a surprised gasp goes up from Linda. There's confused blinking from Carolyn, a dumbfounded expression on Captain McBride's face, and wide eyes from Gunther, but Carol's first question is: "Did she survive?"

Cyndie solemnly shakes her head. "Our doctor tried stitching her up, but the wound was too deep. It became infected, and we buried her eight days ago."

"Our condolences," Gunther says. "It's a blow to lose one of your community. We've suffered a similar loss recently."

"Why did you think they were walkers?" Michonne asks from one end of the table, where she sits flanked by Aaron and Rosita. Around the opposite end of the table sit Jesus, Tara, and Enid.

"'Cause they wore walker masks," Daryl says. He reaches behind himself and holds up the mask he found on the shore.

Michonne's brow furrows in disgust.

"They walked like them, too," Cyndie continues. "And they walked with them. The people were mixed in with the herd."

"So it was a misunderstanding?" Aaron asks. "You tried to kill one of theirs, thinking he was a walker, and they reacted by stabbing Leah?"

"It wasn't a misunderstanding," Dianne says. "They were deliberately trying to draw us in and then take us by surprise. I think they didn't expect us to have so much ammunition on us. But we had two semiautomatic rifles, with ten rounds in each magazine. We don't use rifles to hunt, typically, but we bring them for security, just in case."

"Why did they want to attack you?" Carol asks. "Just to loot?"

"No," Rachel answers. "They're territorial. Apparently they were pissed off our hunters had crossed into their borders."

"You went through their gates?" Jesus asks. "Uninvited?"

"You wouldn't know anything about that now, would you?" Aaron asks. "Gates and bedrooms."

Michonne, who's had Jesus uninvited in her bedroom, chuckles, but she also whispers something to Aaron. She's probably telling him to keep his personal issues with Jesus off the council table, Carol thinks.

"No," Dianne answers. "They didn't have any gates or fences. They just had a territory they considered to be theirs. It wasn't marked by anything but their imagination."

"There was scuffle," Cyndie continues. "After Leah was stabbed, another one of the seeming walkers drew out a sawed-off shotgun, and Kathy and I opened fire."

"Was anyone else hurt?" Carol asks, looking at Cyndie's advisor Kathy. The woman was limping into the pub earlier.

"The Skin shot my foot," Kathy replies. "She was aiming for my chest, but Dianne shot an arrow through her neck while she was firing and she missed. Some shrapnel made it through my boot. The doctor spent hours picking it out, but I'll be fine. It might be awhile before I can walk well, but I'll live."

"We plowed down fourteen of them before the last one fell on her knees with her hands on her head to surrender," Cyndie says. "And that's when we put up our weapons."

"We took the one who surrendered prisoner," Dianne continues. "I interrogated her."

"That's a frightening prospect," Gunther says with a slight smile. "I suppose she caved easily?"

"No. Not at all. But then Rachel got the idea that Henry should play bad cop good cop with me and befriend Lydia - the prisoner - since she's about his age. So we put Henry in our guard house with her under some trumped-up charges."

"Rachel hung me out like a piece of meat!" Henry calls from the bar where he's drying glasses.

"Well you are a cute piece of meat," Rachel calls back.

Henry, smiling, shakes his head and resumes his work.

Carol observes that Daryl is looking at Rachel with startled admiration. It's the sort of idea he would have thought of, and he's probably surprised Rachel did. Carol's surprised, too. Maybe her daughter-in-law is smarter than she's given her credit for.

"She told Henry things," Cyndie says. "Like that her mom was in charge of that group, and she was one of the ones we killed. And the second-in-charge was also killed. Four days after we captured her, and Henry started talking to her, Lydia agreed to lead us back to her mother's camp. It wasn't much of a camp. They had no shelter to speak of. They had this nasty open latrine. They must have lived like animals. Half of them had very recently gotten sick, probably from the lack of sanitation, and most of the camp was dying or dead when we got there. The few survivors had a pile of bodies of their own people they were starting to skin to make masks and…I guess…suits."

"Sweet Jesus!" McBride mutters.

"When Lydia told them Alpha and Beta were dead – "

"Who?" Carol interrupts Cyndie.

"It's what they called their first and second in command," Dianne explains. "They didn't use names with each other. Lydia's mother didn't even call her by name."

"When Lydia told them Alpha and Beta were dead," Cyndie continues, "the survivors fled from us."

"How many?" Carol asks. "Fled?"

"Seven," Cyndie answers. "They don't have any guns, at least. Lydia stayed. She threw herself on our mercy. And there was a baby. The mother, who was sick, had hidden it in the hollow of a tree, maybe to keep the others from killing it. They kill their young, if they become an inconvenience."

"Sweet Jesus!" McBride mutters again.

"Maybe the mother hoped to come back for it," Dianne suggests, "but she got too weak and died. When we found the baby, it was nearly dead, but we saved him. He's in the care of a wet nurse now."

"We've also taken Lydia in," Cyndie says. "But we were hoping the Hilltop might take her." She looks in the direction of Tara, Enid, and Jesus. "What with Aaron and Gracie having moved out, you have room in the mansion now."

At this, Aaron and Jesus lock eyes. Aaron's jaw grows tight and he looks down at the table.

"You have more free rooms than we do," Enid replies. "In your cabins."

"It's not about the space," Dianne explains, "this girl – "

"- She's not a girl!" Henry insists from the bar. "She's my age."

"This young woman," Dianne says indulgently, "has suffered some serious PTSD."

"Haven't we all," Enid mutters.

"The way they lived was traumatic enough," Dianne insists, "but she also clearly grew up under an abusive mother's heel."

Daryl makes a low growl in his throat.

"You have that woman who used to be a clinical psychologist at the Hilltop," Dianne continues. "Maybe she can help Lydia. But more to the point, it's not a good idea for Lydia to be here. Her people killed Leah. She's not exactly embraced by Oceanside. But she could have a new start at the Hilltop, where there isn't so much resentment against her."

"But can we trust her?" Jesus asks.

"I thought you believed trust should be freely given until it's broken?" Aaron replies from the other side of the table.

Jesus catches his eyes and then looks away.

"I don't know," Cyndie answers honestly. "But she has no power to threaten anyone. She can't be more than seventeen, and she's unarmed."

The three rulers of the Hilltop bend heads together. When they sit straight again, Tara says, "We'll take her in, but if there's any trouble – "

"- Of course," Cyndie interrupts her. "We leave that to your discretion."

"This whole story will be more interesting when Erin tells it at the storytelling contest, tonight," Rachel says. "Trust me."

"Well, I'm not exactly bored now," Gunther says. "Anyone else? Bored?"

"Not at all bored," Captain McBride agrees, his usually subdued Scottish brogue slipping out slightly in his excitement. "This is mibay the most mental thing I've heard since I heard the dead were lunting about."

"They really wore cannibal skins?" Linda asks.

Daryl draws the mask to his nose and sniffs. "Don't get it. Get it works when you smear their fresh guts all over ya – but those stink of walker. 'N when the rain comes 'n starts to wash the guts away, the walkers smell ya. This don't smell enough like walker. 'S like a dried hide. So how's it fool the walkers?"

"What's this about smearing guts all over yourself?" Linda asks.

"We did that a couple times," Carol explains. "To get out of some jams. I wouldn't recommend it as a regular practice. And like Daryl says, when the rain came, and the guts started to run off, the walkers began to smell us. So how do they get away with these dried skins?"

"It seems to work," Cyndie answers. "Maybe they freshen them up periodically. Dab them with fresh guts or something."

"Like perfume?" Rachel asks.

"Obsession by Calvin Klein," Henry says from the bar, and Rachel snorts. Carol's surprised Henry would remember those old ads. He was only seven when the apocalypse started.

"If this really works," Linda says, "we could sew coats and jackets and ponchos out of cannibal hides for people to wear when they go outside the gates."

Gunther glances down the table to her. "Linda, old friend, I know you're a business guru, but are you really thinking of starting a cannibal-skin clothing industry?"

Linda shrugs. "I supply the needs and wants of people."

"Well I don't think anyone wants to wear a cannibal skin," Carolyn says, crinkling her nose. "But as a practical matter, I suppose it's worth investigating, to see how well it really works, and, if it does, the Council could order a few…" She crinkles her face in disgust, "clothing items...be prepared and kept accessible for travel."

"Oh, it works," Cyndie assures her. "They walked among them and herded them and corralled them like sheep."

"Why?" Gunther asks.

"To use them as a biological weapon," Dianne tells him. "Which is what really brings us to this table. We need your help."

"My help?" Gunther asks.

"The help of Jamestown," Cyndie explains. "And the Hilltop and Alexandria. She leans forward on the table. "There's a horde of walkers, hundreds of them, currently corralled in the storm stewers beneath the streets of a little beach town three miles southwest of Oceanside, on our peninsula. According to Lydia, the Skins led them in there and were keeping them there to release against us if we trespassed again after our first warning. Leah's death was supposed to be our first warning. They were planning to kill one of us, capture another, and disappear. Then they were going to bring the prisoner back, exchange her for supplies, and warn us not to cross their borders again. They weren't expecting to get shot up."

"Three miles from here?" Carol asks. It's far enough that the sounds from the fair shouldn't agitate them, but it's dangeorusly close in the long-term if they start migrating.

"That also puts the horde six miles northeast from Alexandria," Michonne says.

"And about eleven from the Hilltop," Jesus adds, " as the crow flies."

"And nowhere near Jamestown," Carolyn insists.

Dianne shoots her a peeved look.

Cyndie continues, "The horde is currently contained – the Skins had sealed off the entrances to the storm tunnels with iron gates, but we don't trust those gates to hold if they begin to push as a mass on one of them and if they continue to push for days. If they do that, eventually, they will break through. And if they break through, they'll likely migrate toward us, or maybe toward Alexandria. We have two watchmen there now, to alert us if and when they begin to break through, but we'd like to clear out the entire horde before that ever happens. As a preventative measure. Now that's going to take a lot of walker-slayers and a lot of firepower. We can't kill them all by knife and spear and bow. We were hoping you all would stay an extra day or two after the fair to deal with this horde, that you would lends us your best walker-slayers and some ammunition. I know Alexandria once solved the problem of a horde in a nearby quarry." She turns her attention to the captain. "And I understand the Jamestown navy eliminated several hordes in the early days of its existence."

"Yes," McBride replies, "But I don't really see what this has to do with Jamestown."

Cyndie's mouth opens in slight disbelief. "You don't?"

"It's not a threat to us."

"It's a threat to your allies," she says. "To your – "

"- To my what?" He lets out a puff of air that is possibly a laugh. "To my what, Cyndie? I have no idea what," he waves his hand from herself to himself, "this is. Because you won't tell me."

Apparently Aaron and Jesus aren't the only couple with personal grievances at this table, Carol thinks. Something must have fizzled after Captain McBride's merry greeting of Cyndie yesterday. Or simmered.

"This is neither the time nor the place for that discussion," Cyndie says coolly. "We have a treaty. A binding treaty, written on paper, signed by the representatives of your council."

"A treaty that says Jamestown will supply guns and ammunition at a steep discount," Carolyn says, "if one of our allies is threatened. Not that we'll supply manpower. And it's not even clear to me that anyone is being threatened."

"It's not a threat today," Dianne says, "but it will be in time."

"Couldn't you further block off the entrances?" Linda asks. "With boulders or something?"

"How would we move the boulders?" Cyndie replies. "We don't have working construction equipment."

"Felling trees, then?" Gunther suggests.

"Walkers can crawl over trees," Dianne says. "We could tack boards over the exits, maybe, pile up forest debris, but that just delays the push through by a few days or weeks."

"And even if they couldn't break out on their own," Cyndie says, "those Skins who fled probably know how to lead them. What if they eventually seek revenge and go and let those walkers out and lead them in our direction? We can't keep watchmen on post there forever."

"Do you really think it's necessary to clear out this horde?" Gunther asks Dianne across the table. "For Oceanside's security?"

"I do."

"I haven't done much walker slaying lately," Gunther admits. "I've been inside the gates of Jamestown for years. But I can certainly aim a rifle, and I brought one. And I brought sixty rounds of personal ammo with me for trade."

Dianne blinks in surprise. "Sixty?"

"You know I work a lot. I rarely spend it now that I've stopped drinking."

"You'll help?" Dianne asks.

"I'll help."

"This is a council decision," Carolyn insists. "This is not your call, Gunther."

"It's my call what I do with my own rifle and my own ammo and my own body!" Gunther insists.

"What if we create a worse problem trying to destroy them?" Carolyn asks. "We should just leave them there."

"And leave a 24/7 watch there for years?" Cyndie asks. "It's not realistic. We should be rid of the threat. Ask yourselves whether you would want hundreds of walkers three miles from your doorstep. Three miles from the doorstep of your children."

"They do have a lot of children here, Carolyn," Captain McBride says. "Think of them."

"Now you're on my side?" Cyndie asks with annoyance.

"I was always willing to help. I just don't see what it has to do with Jamestown. Of course I'll help you. The only question is whether I would be justified in ordering my sailors to help. And I don't feel I am. But I'll ask for willing volunteers among my men."

"We're in," Daryl mutters from behind Cyndie. "Me 'n Carol." He locks eyes with Carol, but he doesn't really need to ask. Of course she's willing to help, and maybe some small part of her is even thrilled at the prospect of slaying lots of walkers. God knows she could use the knife and bow practice. She nods.

"Well, I'm just a tavern owner," Linda says. "A bit over the hill. I don't know what I can do, but I've brought plenty of Jamestown shine, and if it will lend the men courage, then I'll offer a free shot to every volunteer cannibal-slayer."

"Here here!" Captain McBride cheers.

Carolyn shakes her head. "We have to vote if we're using communal property brought for trade."

"The shine I'm talking about is mine," Linda says. "Private inventory. It's not community property."

"No council approval is needed for anything we've suggested so far," Gunther tells Carolyn.

"If any of my men volunteer," McBride says, "they can use their own rifles and ammunition. Though I'd suggest the Council consider supplying them ammunition from the communal stores. They'd be more inclined to volunteer their time if they weren't also volunteering their money."

"We can pay you something for your time and ammunition," Cyndie says. "At a discount, in accordance with the treaty. Wine, maybe?"

"Wine?" Henry asks from the hearth, where he's clearing used glasses off the mantle onto a tray. "That's supposed to be for my – "

"- We'll work it out," Cyndie interrupts, and Henry sullenly returns his tray of dirty glasses to a soapy tub of water on the bar. Cyndie looks to both ends of the table as she asks, "What about you, Hilltop? Alexandria?"

Michonne leans back casually against her chair and drapes one slender, dark arm over the back as she turns her body half toward Cyndie. "I'm in. I could probably benefit from getting out a little pent up energy."

"I've got a new arm blade attachment I wouldn't mind trying out," Aaron says. "I've only had to kill one walker since Hilltop's blacksmith made it."

"I could use the martial arts practice," Jesus says. "I'll be happy to kick in some heads."

"I'm in," Tara says. "But I'd really rather Enid stay back. She's our doctor."

"Seriously?" Enid asks. "I can fight."

"I never said you couldn't. I'd rather you not. Besides, one of us should get back to the Hilltop right after the fair. Alden's a good guy, and all, but I don't like leaving the place in his hands for too long."

"Fine," Enid mutters.

"I'm all for wiring some homemade explosives," Rosita volunteers. "Let's see how many we can blow up first before we have to take them out one by one."

"It might be better to funnel them out," Carol suggests. "Control their exit to give us time to kill them rather than to use explosives that might blow both ends of the tunnel open. It would kill some, but the rest would flood out every which way. It would be chaos."

"Then we can blow it up halfway through, maybe, after we've controlled the funnel for a while," Rosita suggests.

"You really just like to blow things up, don't you?" Michonne asks.

"It's economical."

"It's dangerous," Michonne says. "And hard to control. I'm with Carol on this one. Explosives might have their place, but lets not just blow those tunnels wide open to start."

The group discusses the issue a little longer, until it's time for the fair to open, and then they agree to meet again the following morning to finalize their plans. They dissolve to attend the annual celebration of community and trade and life, excited about the fair, but even more about the horde.