Chapter 17: Triggerfinger

It takes a moment for the sound of the four gunshots to fade, but as soon as they do, They know it was a bad, stupid decision even if they were going to shoot them. The gunshots will attract any walkers within the hearing distance.

"Holy shit," Glenn breathes, standing beside Michael. Hershel stands next to Rick, looking down at Tony's body.

"You alright?" Rick asked Glenn.

"Yeah."

Rick looks at Michael and Hershel. "Mikey? Hershel?"

Michael nods once, and Hershel looks away. Rick looks at Glenn, then back to Hershel, who nods. "Let's head back," Hershel decides.

Rick kneels, taking the shotgun and its shells from Tony. Glenn makes his way back around the bar to get Dave's handgun, and Hershel and Michael start to walk to the exit. Rick follows closely, when a car approaches. "Car, car," Rick whispers. "Get down."

They hurry forward, ducking low. Glenn and Michael hide on either side of the door, while Rick and Hershel hide under the windows. The engine stops and the doors open. "Dave? Tony? They said over here?" a man says.

"Yeah," a second man says.

"I'm telling you, man, I heard shots," a third man says. There's at least three men, armed with guns.

"I saw roamers two streets over. Might be more around here," the second man says.

"Dave! Tony!" the third man calls.

"Shut up! You wanna attract 'em? Just stick close. We're gonna find 'em," the first man says. The men walk around, softy calling Dave and Tony's names.


Meanwhile back at the farm

Everyone is ready to have dinner. Carol went outside with Sophia to get the Dixon brothers. As they were heading to where the Dixons are, a Walker suddenly appeared out of nowhere and went for Carol. While that was happening, Ed took advantage of the situation and kidnaps Sophia. Carol was about to be bitten by the Walker when suddenly a bolt arrow pierced the Walker's head. She then turns to see Daryl and Merle. They help her up as the others came out the house to see what was happenning. Carol told them what happened and they all went to find Ed and Sophia.


Back at the bar

After a while, Rick looks out the window, then slowly makes his way over to Glenn and Hershel. Michael follows him, and they kneel in a small group. "Why won't they leave?" Glenn whispers.

"Would you?" Hershel whispers.

"We can't sit here any longer," Rick whispers. "Let's head out the back and make a run to the car."

They start to get up to leave, but they hear gunfire. They hurry back down to where they were a minute before. "What happened?" one of the men ask.

"Roamers, I nailed 'em," another one answers.

"They disappeared but their car's still there," another says. "I cleared those buildings. You guys get this one?"

"No," the first man says.

"Me neither," another says.

"We're looking for Dave and Tony and no one checks the damn bar?" a man snaps. Rick cocks his gun as the footsteps approach. The door starts to open, and Glenn quickly throw himself against it, pushing it shut. But now they know there in here. They would've known anyway when they saw them, but they could've hidden and they wouldn't have seen them. Now they know that there's people in here.

"What?" a man says.

"Someone pushed it shut. There's someone in there." The man's voice rises, "Yo, is someone in there? Yo, if someone's in there, we don't want no trouble. We're just looking for our friends."

"What do we do? Bum rush the door?" one of the men say.

"No, we don't know how many are there. Just relax." His voice rises again. "We don't want any trouble. We're just looking for our friends. If something happened, tell us. This place is crawling with corpses. If you can help us not get killed, I'd appreciate it."

"You're bugging," a man says. "I'm telling you, nobody's in there."

"Someone guard the door. If they're in there, they might know where Dave and Tony are."

One man leaves, while the other two stay. "They drew on us," Rick calls.

The man comes back, and Hershel lowers his gun, which was Dave's. Glenn looks like he really doesn't want to be where he is, and he doesn't want to be in this situation. Either that, or it's the expression of "Oh shit." One of the men call, "Dave and Tony in there? They alive?"

Rick looks down and pauses a minute before answering. "No."

"They killed Dave and Tony," the man says.

"Come on, man, let's go," another says.

"No, I'm not leaving. I'm not telling Jane. I'm not gonna go back and tell them that Dave and Tony got shot by some assholes in a bar."

"Your friends drew on us!" Rick yells. "They gave us no choice! I'm sure we've all lost enough people, done things we wish we didn't have to, but it's like that now. You know that! So let's just chalk this up to what it was: wrong place, wrong—"

A shotgun fires, cutting Rick off. The glass in the window shatters, Rick stands, firing out the broken window. "Get out of here! Go!" He shouted and Glenn and Michael jumped to their feet, running towards the back of the bar. Glenn hid behind a piano and Michael hides behind the bar itself, hearing both Rick's and the men's gunshots syncing with each other. Hershel hides around the corner, leans out, sliding Glenn's Mossberg 500 shotgun to him and he picks it up. The gunfire finally seized.


Back at the farm

Everyone searched everywhere for Sophia, who is being held hostage by Ed. Eventually they found Ed holding Sophia with the Parang machete in hand. He threaten to harm Sophia if they come closer.

Little did Ed know is that Michael taught Sophia how to get out of this situation she's in right now. While Ed is too busy looking forward at the group, he failed to see Sophia pulling the switchblade out of her pocket. She switched the blade out, turned it to hold it in a reverse grip. Then before Ed knew it, Sophia impaled the switchblade in her so called father's leg. She got away as the Dixon brothers gave Ed an ass whooping.

After a while, they decided to put Ed in the back of Carol's car where he will stay for now on. Before they took Ed to the car, Daryl told him that he and Carol have been getting closer to each other. Ed was confused, so Daryl showed him how close they are... by kissing Carol. Everybody is happy that Carol and Daryl are together and now Sophia has a real daddy that will love her and her mother and won't hurt them, ever.

Then everyone went inside the house to eat. Also, they are still waiting for Rick, Glenn and Michael to come back with Hershel.


Back at the bar

Michael saw Rick emptying his gun and reloading it, "Hey! We all know this is not gonna end well! There's nothing in it for any of us! You guys just back off, no one else gets hurt!"

From the back, bottles rattle. Rick looks at Glenn, silently telling him to go check. Glenn gets up, making his way to the back room.

Glenn sees a door about ready to be opened, he raised his gun and shot out the window, the glass falling to the ground in shambles.

"Glenn!" Rick softly calls."Glenn!"

"I-I'm all right," he calls, "I'm all right," Glenn repeats.

Rick and Michael make their way over to Hershel. "I'll hold 'em here, you two cover Glenn," Rick says. "Hershel, see if you can make it to your car. Tell him to pull up back. We'll run for it, get the hell out of here."

"You want us to cover Glenn?" Hershel inquires.

"You missed all that gun training," Rick said, "It could've come in handy now."

"Nah, I can shoot. I just don't like to." Hershel follows Michael to the back of the bar. Glenn quickly turns, his gun raised to them.

Hershel slowly pushed the barrel away and Glenn brought it to his chest, "Sorry… sorry…"

"Rick wants you to try for the car…."

"Try!?" Glenn asked with a bit of fear and Hershel was quick to calm him,

"Try… and succeed. We'll cover you."

"That's a great plan…" Glenn stated sarcastically with the roll of his eyes before taking one last, large breath and proceeding to the door. Michael and Hershel exchanged glances before raising their guns and readying for cover while they followed after him. Glenn slowly moved out the door and down the steps, Hershel and Michael standing in the doorway above him. Glenn moved about next to a dumpster as he looked for the car and scanned his surroundings for dangers.

A gunshot echoed through their ears and Glenn fell to the ground behind the dumpster. Hershel moved around Michael and shot once at the perpetrator, sending him to the grass below him with a bullet in his chest.

Groans and painful calls came from the man trying to move about on the grass. Michael and Hershel head footsteps behind them, seeing Rick approaching,

"What happened!?"

"He fired. He must've hit Glenn. He's behind the dumpster. Doesn't look like he's moving." Hershel said.

The door creaks as the shooter continues to moan. Rick makes his way over to Glenn, shotgun in one hand, Python in the other. Michael is right behind him.

"You hit?" Rick whispers, as he and Michael come closer. "Are you hit?"

"No, no," Glenn finally says.

"It's all right," he says. "The car's right there. We're almost home. You good?"

Glenn nods. "I'm good."

"Let's go," Rick says. He, Michael and Glenn start to get up, but someone starts firing at them. They duck back down.

With a keen eye, Michael looked up at saw a man on a roof, Winchester Model 70 rifle in hand.

The truck the men arrived in screeched to a halt under the building the man on the roof was stationed, "Let's get out of here! There's roamers all over the place, hurry up, we gotta get out of here!"

"What about Sean!?" The man on the rooftop yelled with concern.

"They shot him. We gotta go back. Roamers are everywhere."

"We're leaving?"

"Jump! Hurry up, jump already!"

They hear rattling, and one of the men scream in pain. "Dude didn't make it," Glenn whispers, leaning his forehead against his gun.

"Help me!" the man screams. "Help! Help me!"

"I've gotta go," the first man says, tires squealing as he drives away. "I'm sorry."

"No, don't leave! Help me! No!"

"Get Hershel," Rick says, then gets up. He runs toward the man, while Glenn and Michael stands. They can hear walkers growling.

"Hershel!" Glenn calls. They saw Walkers moving towards them quickly, but soon figured it was not them they were after, but the wounded enemy helplessly lying on the ground. They crouched down and began eating him, his cries of pain becoming even more frantic from being eaten alive. Hershel shot a bullet, putting one of the Walker's out of their misery.

"Hershel, come on."

Hershel grunted and followed after as they moved towards the truck,

"The gunfire must've attracted the walkers," Hershel says, "Where's Rick?"

"He ran across," Glenn answers.

"Well, hell, we can't go without him." Hershel comes around his car, towards where Rick went. Glenn and Michael follow him, and he stops next to Rick. They are next to the man that had to jump, and they see that he's more of a teenager. Maggie's age, even. A spike from the fence has impaled his leg. "Rick, we have to go now," Hershel says, then looks at the teenager. "I'm sorry, son, we have to go."

The dark haired teenager sits up. "No, don't leave me, please," he begs.

"We have to go."

"We can't," Rick argues.

"He was just shooting at us!" Glenn exclaims.

"He's a kid."

"This place is crawling with walkers!"

"We can't leave him!"

"The fence went clean through," Hershel says, cutting off whatever Rick was going to say. "There's no way we can get the leg off in one piece."

The teenager screams when Glenn shakes the fence. "Shut up," Rick says, holding his gun up. "Shut up or I will shoot you!"

"That may be the answer," Hershel says, turning away. "We're not gonna get that leg off without tearing the muscle to shreds. He certainly can't run. He may bleed out."

The teenager continues crying, so Glenn uses his free hand to grab his ankle, twisting his leg on the fence. "Shut up." The teenager screams, and Glenn holds up one hand. "I'm sorry. Sh-sh shut up. Shut up."

"Maybe we should put him down," Hershel says. "I don't wanna see any more killing, but this is cruel."

"Can't we just take the leg off?" Glenn asks.

"That hatchet still in the car?" Rick asks after a moment.

"No, no, no, don't cut my leg off, please," the teenager begs.

Rick holds up his pocket knife. "Will this cut through the bone?"

"I'll have to sever the ligaments below the kneecap," Hershel says, rolling his sleeves up, "cut above the tibia. He's gonna lose his lower leg. When we get clear of here, we're gonna have to find some tinder, cauterize the wound so he doesn't bleed out."

"Alright, no choice. Hurry up." Rick and Hershel prepare to cut the teenager's leg off.

Rick slammed the boy's torso back against the dumpster. Hershel tied his shirt tightly around the boy's leg to cut off circulation, the boy crying out violently and Glenn moved away from them after handing the stick Hershel needed, seeing a large horde,

"Guys, Walkers!" He called.

Rick covers the boy's mouth so more Walkers won't hear his screams.

"Hurry up!" Glenn shouts as he fires his shotgun.

"Shut up!" Rick said as he sees more Walkers. "Oh God, they're everywhere!" He raised his gun and starts firing at the Walkers. Michael fires his shotgun.

"Hershel, how we doing over there?"

"I need more hands," Hershel replies.

"Come on, we gotta go!" Glenn cries. "I'm almost out of ammo! We don't have much time! Come on, we've gotta go!"

"We can't hold them off. Hershel, do it now!"

"Come on Hershel!"

"There's no time!"

"Please don't leave me here!" The boy yelled.

Hershel turns and runs to Michael and Glenn, and Rick stops at the teenager. He looks at him, then thrusts the teenager's leg up, off the fence. He screams in pain as Rick removes his leg.


Back at the farm

After the situation with Ed was taken care of, everyone went back to eating dinner. It became quiet at the dinner table. Lori then told everybody that only Rick, Shane, Glenn, Maggie, Michael, Dale and Hershel know. She told them she is pregnant.

Everyone is happy for her and Rick. Carl is gonna be a big brother and Lori told Andrea that Michael is her unborn child's godfather, so she asked her if she'll be the godmother and Andrea accept. After that, they kept on eating, waiting for Rick and the others to come back.


Morning

It is mid-morning when Rick and the other got back. T-Dog, Andrea, Shane, Daryl, and Dale come from our camp to the front of the house, while the rest of the two groups file out of the house. Rick stops the car, climbing out. He runs to hug Carl and Lori, and Hershel, Glenn and Michael get out. Andrea went to hug Michael.

"You're okay," Maggie says, running forward.

Hershel puts up an arm to hug his daughter, but she runs past him and throws her arms around Glenn. Hershel walks forward, towards the house where Beth is. "Patricia, prepare the shed for surgery."

Glenn walks past Maggie, and T-Dog sees the kid inside the car. He points to him. "Who the hell is that?"

"That's Randall," Glenn says. T-Dog, Andrea, Shane, Dale, and Daryl walk forward to look at him.

"We couldn't just leave him behind. He would've bled out, if he lived that long," Rick says, leaning against a chair in the dining room. They explained everything that happened, while Hershel operated on Randall.

"It's gotten bad in town," Glenn says, changing the subject.

"What do we do with him?" Andrea inquires.

"I've repaired his calf muscle as best I can, but he'll probably have nerve damage," Hershel reports, coming through the door. "He won't be on his feet for at least a week."

"When he is, we give him a canteen, take him out to the main road, send him on his way," Rick continues.

"Isn't that the same as leaving him for the walkers?" Andrea states.

"He'll have a fighting chance," Rick says.

"Just gonna let him go?" Ed questions. "He knows where we are."

"He was blindfolded the whole way here. He's not a threat."

"Not a threat," Ed scoffs. "How many of them were there? You killed three of there men, you took one of them hostage, but they just ain't gonna come looking for him?"

"They left him for dead. No one is looking."

"We should still post a guard." T-Dog said.

"He's out cold right now, will be for hours," Hershel says.

"You know what? I'm gonna go get him some flowers and candy," Ed says. Gotta appreciate the sarcasm from him. Ed scoffs, starting to walk other the door. "Look at this, folks. We're back in Fantasyland."

Hershel starts after him. "You know, we haven't even dealt with what you did at my barn yet. Let me make this perfectly clear, once and for all—this is my farm. Now I wanted you gone. Rick talked me out of it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. So do us both a favor—keep your mouth shut."

Ed then left out of the house.

"Look, we're not gonna do anything about it today," Rick says. "Let's just cool off."

After that, everyone went about their business as usual.

That's it for this chapter. Stay tuned for the next chapter. You all are in for a fight that will happen in the next chapter. Enjoy and review. And May The Force Be With You!