Lily is my OC and the Walking Dead belongs to the creators.
As she stood sweeping the cell block floor, a bad feeling hit Lily causing her to lift her head and look around as if the problem was near.
"Something wrong?" Carl asked her when she stopped sweeping.
"Just got a bad feeling all of a sudden." She looked and listened for a moment longer not hearing or seeing anything out of the ordinary. "But how often these days does anybody have a good feeling. It's probably nothing."
She went back to sweeping and collecting the trash into piles strewn around the floor. Just as she was throwing everything into a trash bag for the third time, shouts echoed from the entrance of the cell block.
"He's loosing too much blood!"
"Open the door! It's Hershel!"
Everyone's head shot up to see what the commotion was and saw something no one expected to see. The dark rotten red walker blood was something to be expected all over everyone, but the fresh healthy red blood splatter across Rick's face and Daryl's chest wasn't. And Hershel being wheeled in on a tray cart was not a good sign.
Lily grabbed the sheet form the mattress in the closest cell and ran toward the rapidly bleeding Hershel as he was being hefted into a bed.
"What happened?" she asked Daryl.
"Got bit! Rick chopped his leg off!"
Panicked voices filled the space all wondering if he was going to turn, bleed to death, or just die deafened everyone. Lily couldn't get past the crowded door way to examine the damage.
"Everybody move!" she shouted. A handful of people moved just enough to let her into the cell where Carol was removing a towel from Hershel's leg to examine it to see if the bleeding had lessened.
"Keep pressure on the wound!" Carol did as she said and Lily prepared to use the sheet as another bandage.
"We need bandages!" Carol announced.
"We used everything we had already," Glenn said rocking back and forth on his feet.
"Well, go get something else!"
"Everything, anything that can absorb the blood."
"Carl, go get the towels in the bag next to my bed," Lori told Carl and he ran out of the cell to look for the towels.
"Damnit! He's bleeding too fast! Someone tighten the tourniquet!" Carol's bloody fingers fumbled with the belt on Hershel's leg as she tried to tighten it. Lily lifted Hershel's leg while Rick helped Carol tighten the tourniquet and just slightly the bleeding began to lessen.
"You think you can stabilize him?" Rick asked.
"We're doing all we can here!" Lily snapped pushing the bloody sheets and towels under Hershel's leg to lift up the stump.
"I need to keep his leg elevated," Carol responded. "Get some pillows!"
"He's already bled through the sheets," Maggie worried aloud.
"We can burn the wood to clot the blood," Glenn offered. "I can start a fire."
"No! Don't do that." Lily snapped. "It'll do more harm than good."
"The shock could kill him," Carol added.
"It won't stop the arteries from bleeding. Right now we just need to get the bleeding stopped."
"Keep the wound dressed and let it heal on it's own."
Then as if things weren't bad enough, more shouting came from the entrance to the cell block.
"What was that?" Beth asked jumping at the shouting.
"Prisoners, survivors," Rick said leaning out the cell door to look at the entrance. "It's all right. Everybody just stay put." Glenn followed Rick out the door but came back in shortly after.
"Glenn," Lily said not looking away from Hershel's leg. "Survivors? Elaborate please."
"We were making our way through the halls when a large group of walkers came through. Maggie and I got—we got separated from the rest. While we were calling out to each other, Hershel got bit by a walker. He was just screaming. We dragged him to the cafeteria where Rick—Rick just…he chopped off his leg without even thinking about it. Then there they were. Looking at us. They followed us back."
"Well, this day just got awful," she muttered through gritted teeth as she pressed against the stump again trying to stop the bleeding.
The survivors could be heard leaving with Rick and Daryl leaving the group to work on Hershel. At least Beth and Maggie had calmed down enough that whey weren't crying, but everyone was watching. It felt like the pressure to do well was just piling up. Never before had Lily felt this kind of pressure to do well.
Lily passed Carol another blood soaked rag looking at her own blood soaked hands. His blood came up to her elbows and was smeared and splattered across her face.
"It's got to stop eventually, right?" Carol said handing the bloody rag to Lori.
"It's slowed down quite a bit already," she mused standing up.
"If we can get him through this—"
"When we get him through this."
"-we'll need crutches."
"Antibiotics. We just need antibiotics and various other things that we don't have," Lily sighed passing another bloody rag to Carol. Lori leaned down to remove the armor Hershel was wearing so he would be more comfortable.
Carol and Lori chatted back and forth about how worried they were about Hershel and the baby. Someone had to be strong for them so Lily chose to be. She had to act like everything was going to be ok. As far as Hershel's condition was, he could survive it. The chances were pretty good, but the haze of turning to a walker dampened spirits. Until he couldn't heal, Lily was going to act like he was going to make it.
Glenn and Maggie talking outside the cell about Hershel reached Lily's ears from time to time but she wasn't paying to much attention to them.
Rick came back wit hT-Dog and their arms were full of food. At least there was one thing to look forward to that night and it was real food.
"Any change?" Rick asked Lori.
"Bleeding in under control and no fever, but his breath is labored and his pulse is way down and he hasn't opened his eyes yet."
"Take my cuffs, put them on him. I'm not taking any chances."
Glenn did as Rick told him.
Moments later Daryl walked into the room to see things for himself. "How are things in here?"
"Bleedings stopped for now," Lily told him almost as if in a trance. Whenever she was operating she developed tunnel vision and nothing was important until she was able to finish whatever needed her attention. "But his breathing is labored and his pulse is weak due to lack of blood. He might need a blood transfusion but we don't have the supplies for that and he'd probably just bleed out the blood we pump back in."
"How are you?" He rested his hands on her shoulders feeling her trembling beneath them.
"As fine as I can be right now."
"I gotta go help clear a cell block for the prisoners, be back after that. Ok?"
"Yeah," she replied weakly looking up at him. "Just keep an eye out for everything. We can't have someone else getting hurt." He gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze before going back out to help move the prisoners.