Rick passed out almost instantaneously once we were done. I lay next to him in the semi-darkness, moonlight the only thing casting shadows into the cell through the bars, my eyes wide open. I was surprised I didn't feel as great as I thought I would. Don't get me wrong here, I felt better, but I still felt a large, painful amount of tension.
I listened to him snore softly. How stupid and trusting he must be. A little bit of evil flared up inside me, thinking of all the horrible things I could do to him while he was fast asleep, but if I was honest, I was past that with Rick. Maybe I was even healing myself. I smiled smugly in the darkness. I was going to take my slight stress relief as a victory. Yeah, that's it, I'm for sure getting better. I turned my smile toward the person I held responsible for this.
Then I heard muffled, but distinct, gunshots.
"Shit!" I exclaimed and jumped out of bed, almost smacking my head on the bunk above me. I moved immediately to the lantern on my desk and fumbled until I got it on. I heard Rick moving out of bed behind me, pulling on clothes as quickly as possible. I jammed on dirty jeans and finished yanking my boots on as soon as Rick was out of the cell door.
I snagged the gun back up from desk and tore out of the building after him.
Outside, I saw a shadowy figure illuminated partially by a campfire that looked like Maggie tearing toward the quarantined block from the guard post. Oh god, she can't go in there. When did that even become an option?
"Rick!" I screamed at his back as we ran toward the sick hall, "Rick, don't go in there!"
"It doesn't matter now, Grey! They can't all die in there, that's my responsibility." He shouted over his shoulder at me.
If he went in there and got sick, the whole group would be lost. They couldn't lose him. Me, on the other hand… Going in there suddenly became an option.
I put on a burst of speed and grabbed a fistful of Rick's white tshirt. I could feel his anger at me for stopping him while he was turning around. Maybe he was about to hit me. But then I noticed something far more horrifying than whatever Rick was about to do to me. His face full of fury, he opened his mouth to most likely say something awful, but I was focused on the fence, my body paralyzed in horror. I heard a gun shot from the sick hall that almost sounded underwater; I paid it no attention. I felt genuine, cold panic seeping through me. I'd surprised Rick, considering I'd just yanked on him and then stopping fighting him at all. He turned to see what had caused my absolute fixation.
Walkers. A mob of them pressed into the fence. There had to be at least fifty of them, clawing like mad through the holes in the gate; groaning and making the fence groan right along with them. Now that they had seen us, their groans began mounting to a louder pitch and I felt my heart beat pick up tempo in fear.
The walkers were pushing against the gate with so much weight, the front walkers were getting their flesh and faces smushed, chunks of skin staying stuck to the gate, while the owners lost parts of their faces, and the chain link fence was moaning and bending forward.
As though my brain was in slow motion, I turned slowly to Rick, realizing after a second that I still had his shirt clutched in my hand. I wanted to say something wise and instructive, to give him the beginnings of plan, but I grappled around in my brain and came up with nothing. There was too much going on. There were people dying inside quarantine, all those people in there, and I'm sure Herschel needed help. Rick couldn't go in there, but I could. But then the fence, if the fences collapsed, we were all screwed anyway.
Rick grabbed my shoulders, causing me to drop his shirt and feel as though I was being yanked out of a pool of deafening water. Wide-eyed, I turned to him. Rick, being the type of guy he was, immediately formulated a plan.
He began speaking slowly and low, "Grey, you need to go into quarantine. You have to help Maggie and Herschel. Get Carl out of there, find him and get him out of there. You tell him to come outside. I'm gonna to use our automatic weapons and I'm going to stop this." He set his shoulders. "Don't worry, Grey, I'm going to stop this."
I nodded erratically. I felt like I should say a parting sentiment. I couldn't think of anything except don't die. Probably not very uplifting. I could hear the gate snapping, then, another gunshot in quarantine. Jesus. I nodded once, solidly, and Rick must have taken it to mean I was mentally competent and aware enough to complete my task.
He took off to the fence. I stumbled backwards, stiff legged, then booked it to quarantine.
I wrenched open the doors into quarantine and slammed into a second set of doors leading into the offices. Crying and screaming filled the air from deeper in quarantine. Running full speed down a corridor, I slid a little on the strewn papers on the tile floor.
Up ahead I saw Carl, frantically reassuring Beth and Judith through a closed door.
He started hard when he heard me running at him.
"Grey, are you ok?" He asked, standing up and taking in my harassed appearance.
"You. You have to go outside. Right now. Your dad is out there and there's zombies everywhere on the fence. They're breaking it and we are going to be overrun. Just GO." I shouted the last part. "I'll handle in here. I doesn't matter if I get sick."
"Ok! Ok!" Carl said, taking off outside.
Maggie was only going to be concerned with two things: Glenn and her dad. I needed to go take care of the rest. I raced up another corridor to get away from Beth and Judith (in case I opened a door and let walkers out) toward, what I hoped, was the back door of the sick hall.
I came to a halt at a set of doors each with a dark window looking into the cells. It was chaos. There were walkers on the bottom floor, stumbling at those still alive. The survivors were in the middle of scrambling out of the way, trying to close their own cells doors, or weakly fight off the vicious walkers.
It was darkish inside, lit by quite a few lanterns hung around. I could see Maggie at the top, with Herschel, probably tending to Glenn. A walker was coming at Herschel's back, but he stood to face it and blasted it in the face with a shotgun. The body flopped against the railings over-looking the rest of the hall.
Ok, let's go, Grey.
I tried pushing in the doors, but of course, they were jammed from the inside with a plank of wood between the handles.
I brought up the butt of my handgun, cocked back, and cracked it against the window. It did absolutely nothing. Yeah, that's just perfect. I took a step back and aimed at the middle of the window, shielding my eyes with my bare arm. As I was squeezing the trigger, I heard a loud scraping and the doors swung open to admit me.
Uncovering my eyes, I stepped into the pandemonium and saw one of the two little blond girls curled in the corner, holding the plank of wood. She must have seen me. I gave her a tight-lipped nod and received a look of pure fear back from her.
Taking in my surroundings, I proceeded to the first of about ten walkers on the ground floor. It was an older guy; blood caked on his face and neck. He was making an awful gurgling noise, like something sour and wet was stuck in his throat. He was advancing on girl about my age with stringy hair. She was in the middle of a hacking fit, looking near passing out, but trying desperately to get away from the walker.
I didn't have a knife on me, which in hindsight seems like something I should have grabbed. I decided now wouldn't be the time to save ammo; my luck, I'd get bitten. I took aim with both hands and shot the walker in the eye socket.
I still wasn't totally comfortable with handguns yet, my aim was iffy, but the first shot gave me some confidence. Ok, on the next one.
Sasha was basically about to get eaten a few cells down. Her door was open and she was passed out on the floor. Why didn't these people think to close their cell doors?
A walker had gotten its white fleshy hand on the outside of her cell, and was drawing near Sasha's form hungrily. It turned its gore-smeared face to me as I came to the rescue. Teeth bared, it let out a guttural growl, adding to the general noisy din around it. It looked like the walker had wiped her face before she'd died; the blood was all spread to the side of her head. As I held my hands up to level my gun, I heard the quick rapping noise of automatic guns outside. Rick and Carl were taking on the fence walkers.
A girl behind me screamed. She screamed so loudly, it sounded like it was directly behind me. Fearing I was about to get the back of my neck ripped out, I broke my concentration and I unwittingly turned away from the zombie I was pursuing.
It was just the little blond girl, running past me, up the stairs. She wasn't even being pursued.
Son of a b-
The walker I had turned away from grabbed my free arm in a vice grip. It wrenched on me, bringing me closer to itself. God damn, they were so strong when they were fresh. I brought the gun up to the side of its head as it made a lunge toward my face. The bullet missed the fleshy temple, and went through the back of the skull.
Above me, over the racket, I heard sputtering and frantic, distressed breathing. I heard Maggie start to panic. Holy crap, I thought, I think I'm listening to Glenn die.
I looked up the stairs in the flickering light to see Herschel bent over, muttering rushed instructions to Maggie. He was slowly getting advanced upon by a very dead patient from the opposite side of the upstairs area. Making sure there was no immediate danger within a few feet of me, I took aim and shot, hitting first in the shoulder, then the second in the head.
I took a few steps toward the next walker. It was pressed against the bars of one of the best lit cells in the place. The occupant was crying and hacking. I took aim as I was suddenly slammed into with the force of a rampaging bull. I flew sideways, feeling my shoulder and my skull consecutively collide into the bars of an open cell door. With an earsplitting bang, the door swung closed from my weight, and I fell forward, following the momentum, patches of black light bursting in my eyes. I smacked the ground, barely catching myself and groggily looked up.
Two walkers had rushed me together when I had walked past their cell. I hadn't seen them in the darkness. They were recovering from the fall much more quickly than I was. Getting up clumsily, one slid in its own blood in its desperation to get to me.
I needed to get into a cell. Hat would be safe. I knew that, but I couldn't seem to get myself to move fast enough. I pushed my palms firmly into the gray concrete, somehow recognizing the underside of my blonde ponytail was soaked with blood. Was that coming from my head? I heard a shotgun fire. I direly wanted to yell for help. I could still hear the automatic blasts outside.
The walkers were up and moving at me, fast, like hungry pack dogs, each trying to get to me first. I let out a scream of panic that I'm sure no one could hear and pushed myself up, head and shoulder in agony. At all fours, I felt a powerful arm wrap around my middle, lifting me. I fought as much as I could, but it didn't make a difference.
I heard two quick handgun shots close by and looked up, expecting to see a walker holding on to me. But it was Daryl.
He had me under one arm and my dropped handgun aimed at my two attackers, both now on the ground, bullets in their heads. I was barely conscious, but I understood he was saving me, so I reached up and held onto his opposite shoulder to prevent sliding onto the ground. He looked down at me, ours eyes met and I felt blissful relief, an all-consuming type of relief. I was pressed into his cold leather vest and could smell the adrenaline on him like it was cologne. I was okay now. Even in the noisy chaos of Michonne and a few of the sick turning the tide on the walker attack, I felt perfectly okay.
He yelled something at me, I watched his lips move, but I couldn't understand him because I was momentarily distracted by a walker falling off the upstairs balcony. It slapped onto the concrete, limbs out in grotesque directions. I must have been getting delirious, because I weakly giggled at the walker's still squirming broken form, gagged a little on vomit, and then everything immediately went pitch black.