When Carol and Daryl reached the front fence, the gate was wide open and a pack of walkers – two dozen, at least - were spilling out of the woods on the other side of the street. A military truck was now parked next to Daryl's pick-up beyond the moat, but its canvas top was missing and the back half of the trailer looked singed with fire.
A guard on the platform shot into the lurching pack of monsters to keep it from the truck, where two soldiers were lowering a woman onto a stretcher. Rosita was frantically cranking the handle that lowered the drawbridge. Daryl rushed to help her, while Carol drew her handgun and shot a walker jerking toward the two soldiers who were picking up the stretcher. It was a difficult shot at fifty yards, but she managed.
With Daryl's muscle thrown into the mix, the drawbridge quickly clicked into place. Rosita swung her rifle off her shoulder. Daryl drew his handgun, and all three, along with the guard on the platform, fired on the walkers to cover the soldiers who began walking quickly but cautiously over the drawbridge while holding the stretcher between them. Axel was at the front, and Abraham was at the rear with his back to the walkers. An African-American woman lay moaning on the stretcher. Blood blacked the left leg of her army fatigues.
As soon as the soldiers were over the moat, Rosita yelled to Daryl, "Drawbridge!" He shoved his handgun into his holster and ran to crank up the bridge while Rosita, Carol, and the soldier on the platform continued to shoot the walkers that were now growling toward the bridge. One walker made it onto the bridge and slid down it as it was raised and landed on their side of the moat. Carol promptly blew its head in two.
Bob and Tyreese were now running through the open gate. "Oh God! Sasha!" Tyreese took over for Axel who seemed to be struggling with the stretcher.
"What's the damage?" Bob shouted.
"Gunshot wound to the outer, upper left leg!" Abraham yelled.
"I'll take over the stretcher," Bob insisted.
"No!" Abraham told him. "I've got it! I'm staying with her! Move! Move! Move!"
Carol had stopped firing, and Daryl, his muscles aching from the quick, hard work of cranking the draw bridge, hadn't bothered to draw his handgun again. There was no need. Scores of walker corpses now lay strewn near the military truck and on the other side of the moat. Three final creatures spilled out of the woods and made their way across the street. Hissing and hungry for the meat on the other side of the moat, they witlessly lurched toward the open pit. One tumbled down and landed on several grasping, outstretched walker arms, looking, for a brief second, like someone coasting in a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert. Another fell in empty spot, snapping both its legs in the process. The third managed a soft landing as it slid through the pillow of other walkers. It got to its feet again and began growling and scratching the sides of the pit.
Rosita stepped forward and spat down into the pit atop of one of them. "Let's get inside."
As the trio turned back toward the gate, Rick burst through the opening and stopped and caught his breath as he looked over the scene.
"All clear, deputy," Rosita told him drolly as she sauntered past him.
[*]
While Bob and Dr. Stevens tended to Sasha in the infirmary, Sheriff Tara, Deputy Rick, and several Woodbury soldiers rolled the walker corpses into the moat and investigated the woods to make sure that was the last of the sudden pack. Carol and Daryl checked on Sophia, who had been startled by the gunshots but had now happily returned to her D&D session. "Don't stay up too late," Carol warned her before leaving with Daryl to come to Rosita and Abraham's house, where they now sat on stools at the bar in the kitchen.
Rosita poured Carol a glass of water and Daryl an ounce of whiskey from a decanter. She poured herself a bit more of the brown liquid.
Carol thanked Rosita for the water. It was good to be the General, she thought. This two-story townhouse was all old-fashioned brick on the outside, but inside it was modern luxury. It had two bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs. Downstairs, it had a half bathroom, a living room, a hardwood-floored study, a formal dining room, and this spacious, neatly tiled kitchen with stainless steel appliances and black granite countertops. It was a lot of space for two people.
In response to a knock at the door, Rosita called, "Come in!" and Rick made his way to the bar in the kitchen.
"Whisky?" Rosita asked. "Or water?"
"I could use the whisky." He leaned against the counter next to Daryl.
As Rosita poured, she said, "Abraham's in the shower. He'll be out soon. Anymore biters out there?"
"We shot two stragglers," Rick answered. "That was it. No telling where that pack came from. Unfortunate timing, right when the soldiers were returning. Tara wants me to take Abraham's report for the Sheriff's Department."
"Department," Daryl murmured. "Impressive."
"There are only two of us," Rick admitted. "Me and Tara. And it's not really clear where our authority ends and the army's begins when it comes to providing internal security. But we're trying to work that out. Community policing would be…friendlier."
Rosita made a scoffing sound. "We're trying to keep biters and bandits at bay, not make friends."
Abraham, no longer in army fatigues but in a fresh, white muscle shirt and a pair of gray sweat pants came downstairs and into the kitchen drying his red hair with a towel. He walked over to Rosita's side of the counter. "Miss me?"
"Missed your transmission. You better have a damn good reason for not checking in for twenty-four hours straight."
"CB stopped working in the truck." He draped the towel over his broad shoulder. "Harold's looking at it now. Trying to fix it. I did try to call in from Terminus's radio once before we got back on the road, but no one was picking up."
Rosita sighed. "I told Welles to make sure someone was always on that radio!"
Abraham flipped open the box of cigars on the counter, took one out, and ran it under his nose as he inhaled the scent. "Are these from Fun Kingdom?"
"I got them for you," Rosita said. "Traded some of my own ammunition." But when Abraham started to unwrap the cigar from the plastic, she said, "Not in the house."
He threw the cigar back in the box. "Then pour me some of that whiskey."
Rosita did.
"How's Sasha?" Rick asked.
"She's going to pull through, thank God," Abraham replied. "She's a fighter that one. Her brother Tyreese is with her now."
Rosita looked at him coolly as she extended him the glass of whisky.
"And Big Tiny and Franco?" Rick asked. "I see they didn't come back with you."
Abraham shot half the whiskey and swallowed hard. He set the glass on the counter with a clink. "They're both in greener pastures." He nodded at Daryl and Carol. "Are they a cleared party to this debriefing?"
Rosita rolled her eyes. "Cleared? Seriously? Consider them the ambassadors of Fun Kingdom if that helps."
"Ambassadors?" Daryl said. "You hear that, Miss Murphy?"
"I did hear it, Ambassador Dixon."
Daryl chuckled.
"So, I take it you ran into trouble at Terminus?" Carol asked.
"No," Abraham answered. "Terminus was the cat's meow if you like hanging out with gun-toting hippies. But we ran into a gang of sorts on the way home from Terminus. They got us to stop on the road by throwing a Molotv cocktail into the back of the truck. It set the canopy on fire, and we had to get out to deal with that irregular shitstorm. That was when they attacked. A gun battle ensued. We were sorely outnumbered, twelve to five, but fortunately not outgunned. They only had five firearms themselves. They had a whole mess of knives, but you know what they say. Never bring a knife to a gun fight. We killed them all."
"But they killed Big Tiny and Franco?" Rick asked. "And shot Sasha?"
Abraham nodded solemnly. "They all had the letter W carved on their foreheads, like some kind of sick Sesame Street lesson."
"How far from Woodbury were you jumped?" Rosita asked.
"Thirty miles or so."
Rosita crossed her arms over her chest. "And do you think that was the whole gang?"
"No way of telling. We were in a hurry to get Sasha back for treatment. We didn't have time to look for a camp. But I think twelve is a bigger-than-tits cult following these days. I wouldn't anticipate many more."
"And Terminus?" Carol asked.
Terminus, Abraham told them, was in a two-story, brick train station building at the end of a railway, behind barbwired, chainlink fences, with vegetable gardens, a greenhouse tent, and lots of storage food with a thirty-year shelf life. "The good shit. Not those bland MREs the Army used to feed us." The camp had a generator to provide limited electricity when most needed, two 500-gallon tanks of propane, and a 9,000-gallon steel reservoir water tank. They used water sparingly and had a system for collecting rainwater and funneling it in to help refill the tank. The camp had about fifty people.
"Fifty?" Rosita exclaimed. "That's almost as big as Woodbury. Kids?"
"About a dozen," Abraham answered. "They started the camp with only three people, but they've been rolling out the welcome mat out for months. The camp was established by two brothers, Gareth and Alex, and their mother Mary. Peace Corp types. Do-gooders. When they started, those boys knew their way around a gun about as well as a pimply fifteen-year-old virgin knows his way around a clit."
"Abe, we have company." Rosita nodded to Carol. "So maybe cool it with the colorful metaphors."
"That was an analogy, darling. Anyway, our team scoped out the camp by night, got a sense of its exits and entrances and security, like I told you we were going to do when the radio was still working."
In the morning, Sasha went alone to the front gate and pretended to be seeking refuge. They figured the group would feel more at ease taking in a female refugee than someone who looked like Abraham or Big Tiny. The other soldiers held back and kept an eye on her from the perimeter, obscured by trees and scouring the scene with binoculars.
Gareth patted Sasha down, disarmed her, and brought her in for what they called an "intake interview." Afterward, they welcomed Sasha to join them but let her know they'd keep a close eye on her for her first two weeks at the camp, and that after that two-week trial period, she could have all her weapons back and become a full citizen of the camp. That's when she told them she had a camp already, and that she was just being cautious before attempting to establish an alliance.
"She came out and gave us the heads up," Abraham said, "and so I went in to meet with their leaders. They do seem like a decent community. But they're lucky to have survived this long. They used to walk around that place unarmed."
"What happened to slap sense into 'em?" Daryl asked.
"A passer-by," Abraham replied.
Terminus had someone join them temporarily. An ex-cop. He told their leaders they were being foolish not to heavily arm themselves and even more foolish to post signs to their precise location, which was how he had found them. He couldn't convince them to stop advertising and welcoming people, but he did convince Gareth and Alex to allow him to train everyone over the age of fourteen in the use of firearms. And he had a lot of firearms with him. He'd looted the armories and evidence lockers of three different police stations, and his truck was full of guns and ammunition. He trained the Terminus camp for two weeks, and then he just moved on. He said he was headed for D.C. to see if there was anything left of the government. He left Terminus most of his guns and ammunition in exchange for storage food.
The next week, Terminus was attacked by a gang of vicious men who intended to rape, pillage, and murder. They were able to fend them off because of the guns and the training, and they only lost one person in the battle. But that single loss was enough to convince them to disarm anyone seeking asylum and to maintain an armed guard at all times.
"But they refuse to stop advertising," Abraham said. "They've got signs up, and they run that broadcast on a different CB channel each week, over and over, hoping someone in need will pick it up. They took in eight new refugees just this month, three of them children, and they won't quit the good work. But at least they're prepared to defend themselves now. I've got to hand it to that man who trained them."
"That man," Rick said. "That ex-cop. Did they happen to mention his name?"
"Shane Walsh."
Rick exhaled and took a step back. Daryl and Carol caught each other's eyes.
"That's a familiar name?" Rosita asked.
Rick explained how he'd known Shane.
"Why would he just leave like that?" Rosita asked.
"Because he was a man with a mission, clearly," Abraham replied. "I can respect that."
"He's not going to find anything in D.C. We know that."
"We know Eugene was full of shit," Abraham told her, "but he might find something there. He found Terminus, after all. Saved all their asses and didn't even stay long enough to see it."
"So…did you establish an alliance?" Rosita asked. "With Terminus?"
"We told them we'd come to trade the last Friday of each month. They don't have much gasoline, and they only have three vehicles. It's a bit of hike to go out there any more often than that. Unlike them, though, I wasn't giving out the location of either of our camps. They just know we're somewhere in the South. I did ask for a list of all their names, so everyone can check if they have any friends or family there. I thought that would be easier, safer, and more thorough than asking around about our people. That way they don't have an idea of just how many people we have."
"But you think they're good people?" Carol asked.
"I do. I don't think they're a threat at all, and Sasha agrees with my assessment."
"And what about Axel? Did he agree with your assessment?" Rosita sounded irritated. "Big Tiny? Franco? Or does just Sasha's opinion matter?"
Daryl busied himself with sipping the last of his whiskey, while Rick asked, "Where's that list?"
Abraham, taking the excuse not to answer Rosita, walked into the living room and returned with a sheet of notebook paper filled with a handwritten name on each line. Rick set it on the counter beside Daryl and picked up his glass of whiskey to sip while he read the names silently to himself.
Carol leaned to her left so she could see the list, too. She scoured each line for the names Michonne, T-Dog, and Mika had mentioned, but they were nowhere to be found. When it was clear Daryl and Rick were done reading, she reached out to flip the page over. She skimmed through the names on the other side, hoping for a Jamar Hawthorne, an Eric Raleigh, or a Shantelle Douglas:
J.C. Berg
Brian Case
April Case
Kim D. Stark
Jess Markwood
D.D. Love
Kyr Lincoln
Karen M. Stories
Sheri Beach
Veronica D. Stark
Ali Babwa
Martin Hoss
Randy P. Scallion
Joe McCorvy
X.W. Smith
Morgan Jones
Duane Jones
The glass of whiskey slipped from Rick's hand. It smacked the edge of the granite countertop of the bar, toppled sideways, and then shattered on the hard tile floor.