Waiting Game

Daryl was tired and sore; it was amazing how using a different style of bow could make your muscles so sore. He and his crossbow were as one, but Patrick's plan required him to use a conventional bow, and he wasn't very good with that. He had spent the day after their trip to the Nazi compound with a master archer from the area who had shown him all that he could and left him to practice and he had until his arm felt as if it were ready to drop off. He was getting better at what he needed to do. He was working with Glenn on this and Glenn was almost as tired as he was.

Patrick had used the resources around him to develop this plan. Dave had been a chemical engineer and he and Patrick had been working on chemical weapons. Dave was still recovering from being shot during the raider attack but he and Sam had been scavenging materials that they needed to make the weapons.

Michonne, Andrea, and Rick had spent the day keeping an eye on the Nazis. They had used a state map to locate the county seat of government closest to the Nazi compound; they had gone to the county courthouse and been able to locate county maps showing all the roads in the area. Using those detailed maps they had found a less traveled route to the compound which enabled them to hide their vehicle closer to the hill top fort. Michonne found an old path that made it easier to get up the hill and that in places the fence as almost at the edge of the steep drop offs. The walkers couldn't reach them when they got in those places and they were able to watch longer.

Carol and the man were working in an infirmary for the slaves. They could see people going in and coming out with bandages. The slaves were cutting down the last crops and storing everything away. Other slaves were working to maintain the grounds and to keep the fence line clear. The slaves were thin but not emaciated; Andrea said that the Nazis weren't wasting food on them but didn't want them to become too weak from hunger to work.

The blond boy and the two girls went out the back door of their house and spent hours inside of a steel building. The girls looked exhausted when they came out, but unhurt. They were silent when they walked back to the house but they seemed friendly with the boy. Michonne kept looking at the boy; he was watching his surroundings and she could sense that he didn't have big love for the people in the houses that they were passing. The boy opened the door for the girls and waiting for them to enter before he gave a last cautious look around.

Michonne watched Carol and the man come back to the house for lunch and leave thirty minutes later. They seemed to trust each other but she could tell that they both were wary of others. There were children playing outside on one of the lawns and Carol's companion stopped to talk to their mother. Michonne could not imagine attacking and killing those babies; she wished she could talk to Carol and find out what she musk know about these people.

Two men waited on Carol and the man to meet them on the way back to the slave infirmary. Michonne kept her binocular sights on them; they looked predatory. Carol and the man greeted them and appeared friendly enough. Carol's back was to her but she could tell that Carol was wary of these two. Soon Carol and the man moved on but she noticed the way the two men continued to watch them that they didn't trust them. Michonne wanted this over; Carol's apparent safety was an illusion. No one would be safe as long as they two walked the earth.

Andrea looked at the Nazi compound like another Woodbury; some of these people were just trying to survive like Milton. The others enjoyed killing and destroying. The life that she wanted to have on McAllister Mountain would never happen if they didn't clear out this nest of rattlesnakes.

Rick looked at the houses, the gardens, and the general sense of order here and despaired of humankind. They had a place of relative safety, supplies, and enough people to maintain it. Why did they have to create slave labor and go raiding others?

Allen was telling Carol some of the history of this place. It had been here for ten years before the ZA hit as a meeting place for survivalists and the right wing fringe. The land had been owned by a group called New America who espoused racial separation and less government handouts. The New Americans had dragged him up here and to be honest he liked most of them. He didn't share their ideas on racial separation but he was for less government handouts so it evened out.

They had expanded the original fences in the first year and while they scavenged for resources they would rescue survivors and bring them back. They had separated the African-American survivors away from the main compound. They encouraged them to set up their own compound somewhere else but had recognized that leaving here might be a death sentence. No one was forced out; there was no work no eat rule that applied to everyone.

About a year ago they brought back a large group of survivors and that is where the trouble began. This group began to take over, gradually three groups began to emerge; the ruling elite that wanted to subsist by raiding, the New American group that was afraid of the Nazis that ran the place now, and the slaves, both black and white who were at the mercy of the other two groups. Carol asked, "What happens when the place gets attacked? Will they work together to fight off a common enemy?

Allen answered, "The only common enemy that we have are the monsters outside? Carol asked, "How many of the Nazis?"

Allen mentally counted up, they had lost a bunch of raiders when they had attacked Carol's group. "Between twenty and twenty five I think. There are maybe thirty of the New Americans left. Their numbers have gone down since last year. There are about forty slaves. So they could probably take down the Nazis if they got together but the Nazis have control of most of the weapons."

Carol wondered why a survivalist right wing fringe group would ever agree to give up their weapons. She wondered how long before the New Americans were all dead and the Nazis took everything they had built up here.

Allen pointed at the Nazi flag in front of all the major buildings. "The New American flag is basically the American flag with a single large star on it. The plan was to rebuild America and to add stars as they did so. They weren't doing too well with racial segregation and had integrated the school in six months and then the housing integrated, and things were looking pretty much like the old America before the Nazis showed up. "

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Carol knew that her people would come for her and the fight would be on. The waiting game would be over soon.