Eve's POV
Finally, we got this bus out of the way. It was a good idea to use the trucks to nudge it until it was off the path and we could get the cars through. There's a slight dent in the front of my truck now though.
I came up beside Rick after parking my truck.
"Okay, let's get the other car in. We'll park 'em in the West entry of the yard." He turned in different directions, looking around while he organized everything in his head.
I nodded, glancing up to the yard as well as Daryl came up next to me.
"Good." He tossed a set of keys at Rick. "Our vehicles camped out there look like a giant 'vacancy' sign."
"After that, we need to load up these corpses so we can burn 'em." Rick motioned around at the bodies in the grass.
"Gonna be a long day." T commented and I nodded, fist bumping him as a strange little way of saying 'let's get started'. I don't know exactly when we started doing that but we've all been doing it all day. Since we were woken up two hours ago and brought outside against our will to do things adults have to do. Like keep track of our belongings and make sure our cars don't get jacked.
"Where's Glenn & Maggie. We could use some help." Carol asked, walking up after parking the truck.
"Up in the guard tower." Daryl pointed, letting his hand swing as it came back down.
"Guard tower? They were just up there last night." Rick glanced at us in mild disbelief.
Daryl cupped his hand over his mouth, half-stepping forward and shouted, "Glenn! Maggie!"
The door at the top of the tower opened and Glenn poked his head out.
"Hey… what's up guys?" He called down, trying and failing to do up his pants, awkwardly half hiding behind the door.
"You cumming?" Daryl called up.
My eyebrows jumped to my hairline as Rick and I both looked at Daryl from either side of him. He just stood there grinning and kept his eyes on Glenn, trying not to laugh.
"What?" Glenn struggled to put his belt back on.
I snorted so hard it hurt and made me cough and Carol & T snickered behind me, trying to keep their chuckles down and to themselves.
"You cumin'?" Daryl repeated.
Glenn just stared at him, confused and half turned towards the door like he's looking to Maggie for help but she's still inside.
I can't handle this. I had to turn around, pinching my nose and still had trouble containing an all out wheezing fit of laughter.
"Come on, we could use a hand." Daryl motioned and everyone turned around to get back to what we're doing and I got about 10 steps before I finally lost it and broke into a fit of giggles that broke Carol and Rick too who'd been doing much better than me at containing it.
It was Glenn's face! When Daryl said — and how confused he was…
I gasped for air, trying to stop picturing it.
"Hey, Rick." T-Dog's serious voice called behind us and the 4 of us stopped and looked back.
My smile died as I followed his gaze up to the upper yard. Where 3 prisoners stand at the fence.
"Come with me." Rick spoke sternly, like someone took a dump in a bucket and told him it was chocolate ice cream.
The light atmosphere faded like morning fog and I sighed, rubbing my eyes.
Here we go.
Daryl tapped my shoulder and I nodded, falling into step next to him as we followed Rick up.
"We had an agreement." Rick stopped almost 15 feet from the 3, sounding like he really gave someone who he was giving up on their last chance and they still screwed it up.
"Please, mister. We know that." Axel didn't even notice the door behind him open and Maggie & Glenn come out of the tower, but Big Tiny Oscar did, taking uneasy glances at them now that the three of them are surrounded by us.
"We made a deal. But you gotta understand...we can't live in that place another minute. You follow me? All the bodies— people we knew. Blood, brains everywhere. There's ghosts." Axel went on and while I do sympathize with them, I don't understand why they're out here.
They've seen Rick — the rest of us. We warned them. They know we don't have any tolerance for troll shit. They've gotta know it was stupid coming out here. Why risk it?
I glanced at Daryl and we shared a look that tells me he's thinking the same thing before he looked back at them, setting his hands on his hips.
"Why don't you move the bodies out?"
"You should be burnin' them." T-Dog piled on.
"We tried. We did." Axel answered swiftly, but not quick enough to be a lie.
"The fence is down on the far side of the prison." Oscar piped up.
What?
That captured my full attention. If the fence is down over there, that's a problem. For all of us.
One mistake and it would be super easy for walkers to flood through there, kill these 3, and push through the tombs again, maybe even all the way to our cell-block.
We locked down that part of the prison, it's unlikely they would make it all the way to us even if that did happen, but I'm not comfortable with just 'unlikely'.
"Every time we drag a body out, those things just line up. Droppin' the body and just runnin' back inside." He continued.
"Look," Axel moved forward and everyone stiffened, hands going to their weapons instinctively. Me included, even if I don't think he's a real threat, it's just a reflex.
"We had nothin' to do with Thomas and Andrew. Nothin. You trying to prove a point? You proved it, bro. We'll do whatever it takes to be part of your group. Just please please... don't make us live in that place."
"Our deal is non-negotiable. You either live in your cell-block, or you leave." Rick answered without taking more than a second to think.
Well, this a bit over dramatic. There's plenty of things you could do to make the place more livable, even comfortable.
There's also more reasonable things they could've asked from us, like help with making it more secure, more livable, or even just general guidance because to be fair, we have a lot of experience that we could impart to them with no real threat to ourselves. Heck, it'd even help us if they could take care of themselves.
But joining the group… that's not something that will happen without a trigger, even if we agreed. It doesn't matter how friendly they are or if we were even stupid enough to let our guards down.
Hell even when we met the Greene's there was a trigger. Literally.
Now that I think about it actually… there's always been a trigger. None of us ended up together simply because we decided to. Most of us just happened across one another, saved each other and established some sort of immediate trust and that trust has been cultivated and grown over time, until we've ended up here as we are now.
Trust is paramount.
Even if I don't personally believe these 3 are an immediate threat, I still don't trust them. And glancing around, nobody else does either.
"I told you this was a waste of time." Oscar looked at Rick directly. "They ain't no different than the pricks who shot up our boys."
My eyes flickered to Maggie and Glenn who shifted uncomfortably. Guess neither of them thought about it before.
"You know how many friends' corpses we had to drag out this week? Just threw 'em out, like." Oscar shook his head, not even able to think of a comparison.
He huffed. "These were good guys. Good guys who had our backs against the really bad dudes in the joint, like Thomas and Andrew. Now we've all made mistakes to get in here, chief. And I'm not gonna pretend to be a saint, but believe me… we've paid our due — enough that we would rather hit that road, than to go back into that shit hole."
I glanced at Daryl, wanting to see what he thinks about this. He doesn't look convinced at all.
Rick turned back glancing at the two of us. Daryl shook his head, I pressed my lips into a thin line before tonguing my molars.
"C'mon, dude." Axel complained as Daryl locked the gate with the 3 of them inside the 'checkpoint' for vehicles going in and out of the prison.
I really gotta gives these gates names. From now on, this is 'entry gate'. The secondary gate into the upper yard is gate 2. The inner yard gate leading to the other cellblock (which is theirs) is gate 3.
I walked with Daryl to the back of the overturned dirty blue bus. Just in time to hear Rick say to T-Dog, "Are you serious? You want them living in a cell next to you? They'll just be waiting for a chance to grab our weapons."
Well I mean… the cells lock. From the outside.
This is kind of exactly what they're designed for.
"You wanna go back to sleeping with one eye open?"
Since when did we ever sleep with one eye open? At least 1 of us is always awake. That's what guard duty is for, ma dude.
"I never stopped." T-Dog shook his head.
"Bring them into the fold." He urged. "If we send them off packing, we might as well execute them ourselves."
My breath caught in my throat a little, and I looked down at my shoes, at the watch on my wrist.
...He sounds like Dale. When we were talking about what to do with Randall.
"I don't know. Axel seems a little unstable." Glenn spoke up.
I almost laughed. And exactly how much interaction have you had with him?
I was walking through the tombs with these guys all day yesterday and not to be an asshole but Axel isn't the sharpest crayon in the box.
He looks like he should be selling cocaine on a street corner but believe me, that's just because he has an unfortunate taste in mustaches. He'd probably sell it to a cop in a squad car, if it pulled up next to him.
I grew up around kids who most certainly ended up like this. You'd be surprised how many kids there were floating through the system who behave exactly like these guys. And probably wound up in places like this just because no one ever taught them how to function on their own as adults.
A lot of them didn't have any initiative to learn how by themselves either, or were actively rebelling against it for one reason or another(or multiple).
It's pretty common, unfortunately. I mean, I'm no saint either. I was a drifter too, just like those kids.
"After all we've been through. We fought so hard for all of this, what if they decide to take it?" Carol voiced her concern.
"It's just been us for so long. They're strangers. I don't — it feels all of a sudden havin' other people around." Maggie crossed her arms, squinting against the sun, feeling uncomfortable
"You brought us in." T countered.
"Yeah, but you turned up with a shot boy in your arms. Didn't give us a choice."
On the one hand, there could be a lot of benefits to having more a few more hands and bodies around. Especially ones who know this prison and its history. Where inmates might've hidden things or where guards might've kept things that could be useful. Or things in the surrounding area, like places that might make good runs or things we might want to stay away from, like a shopping mall or something.
On the other, there could be unforeseen consequences for taking them in. As well as the fact we'll have to train them and it'll put more strain on our resources — but...if they're able to pull their weight even a month from now, the benefits of having some more people around who know a thing or two about typically criminal activities like theft, breaking & entering, cars, etc. The pay off could be huge.
These guys could be apart of the gold mine Rick said this might be, which it's turned out to be exactly that.
And unlike if these guys had been out here all this time, I think they're actually more trustworthy than if we were considering taking in someone from the outside.
They're like clay blocks waiting to be molded into whatever role in the group we need them to fill. And they're more than willing.
"They can't even kill walkers." Glenn pointed out.
"They're convicts, bottom line." Carol shook her head.
"Those three might actually have less blood on their hands than we do." T-Dog reasoned.
T-Dog's absolutely right. If we send them away as is, they will almost certainly die.
They might make it a week, a month, but the 3 of them will never last as long as we have. Especially since we've sort of grown with the threat out here, while they've been stuck at lvl 1.
Oscar might last longer than Axel, he doesn't seem like the type to be able to regulate himself very well. Big Tiny… he's too soft, and big. He's a bigger, slower target. He'd get surrounded, panic, and go down.
"I get guys like this." Daryl interjected, pulling everyone's attention. "Hell, I grew up with 'em."
"They're degenerates but they ain't psychos. I coulda been in there with them just as easy as I'm out here with you guys."
"So, you're with me?" T-Dog asked.
"Hell, no."
My eyebrows raised. That's not what I was expecting after that.
"Let 'em take their chances out on the road. Just like we did."
Yeah, slight flaw there blue eyes. We had like 20 people in our group before and still lost more than half getting here. There's 3 of them. We had much better odds.
"What I'm sayin' Daryl —"
"When I was a rookie, I arrested this kid." Rick cut T off and I kinda want to punch him for it.
R U D E.
"Nineteen years old, wanted for stabbing his girlfriend. The kid blubbered like a baby during the interrogation, during the trial. Suckered the jury."
"He was acquitted due to insufficient evidence and then, two weeks later, shot another girl. We've been through too much."
That's a wonderful example of a psycho, your point is…? That everyone who ends up in prison, be it for breaking and entering, white collar crimes, being framed, serving a light sentence for something minor, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is automatically guilty of what?
"Sorry to interrupt Officer," Everyone looked at me. "but you've got a little 'biased as hell' on the corner of your mouth there."
Rick gave me a withering look and I raised my eyebrow at him. Tell me I'm wrong ya kumquat.
I wanna roll my eyes that I have to explain this. "We don't have to just let them in."
"All we really gotta do is give them opportunities to prove themselves. Test them until we're satisfied, kind of like we were doing in the tombs when we taught them how to kill walkers. Yeah they need practice, but there's plenty of that to go around."
"We could even tell them that if they want to join us, they'll have to prove they're capable. And in the meantime, the deal continues as is. They stay in their cell-block, we go get them when we've got a test or need more hands or have some tedious work to do, and double it as teaching them how to survive. Then we revisit this and decide definitively whether or not to let them join or send them away with a better chance of survival. Everybody's happy."
Rick thought for a few seconds before shaking his head. "Our deal with them stands."
I huffed as everyone but me and T walked away.
Well fine then! Shoot down my perfectly reasonable alternative and deal with the consequences yourself, ya goblin-toothed cleft ear dingus.
Don't come crying to me when this bites us in the ass and I have to clean up yer shit again just because you don't know when to play nice -world's-black-and-white.