Chapter Twenty-Six

Summer's POV

It had been eight months since we lost the farm and Lori was about to pop. Harry was almost a year old and we were all constantly on the move. Luckily we hadn't lost anyone else since leaving the farm but that's not saying we didn't have a lot of close encounters, because we did. Rick had taken his leadership role much more seriously than I had ever seen him take it before. He used to just make decisions as unbiased as possible and try to do right by everyone and now he was just calling the shots and if you didn't like it you could leave. I could tell it was taking a toll on Daryl, especially when Rick would bark orders at people and one of those people was me. I didn't mind pulling my weight with the group, none of us did, because by now we weren't a group of strangers we were family. I would be just as devastated to lose any member of our group as I would be to lose Daryl. We had been on the run all day looking for somewhere to hole up because sleeping in cars was not doing us much good and I would be lying if I said Harry crying in the middle of the night was not one of the reasons we were constantly in danger and needed somewhere safe to stay.

As we were walking through the woods one day we came across a small house and cleared it and sat down for a minute. I could tell Lori was grateful to be off her feet and frankly so was I. I wasn't much help taking down walkers because I was always carrying Harry. Daryl offered to take him a few times but I always turned him down because he was a better shot than I was and the group needed him to protect them. There was an unspoken agreement that Daryl had replaced Shane as Rick's right hand man and he was taking the new role rather well. Daryl came back in the room with an owl that I presumed he shot and Carl came in with a couple of cans of the only thing he could find, dog food. He started to open one of the cans and Rick grabbed it from him and threw it across the room.

"We're not eating that," he said simply, once again no one argued.

Rick looked out the window and noticed there was a huge herd coming through. He signaled for us to leave and we all grabbed our stuff and threw everything into the cars and hit the road once again. After driving for a few miles we all parked and Hershel pulled out and map and set it on the hood of one of the cars. The map was marking the routes of the herds and where we were encountering them. He marked the spot we just left and him and Rick started talking about where to head next and where the herds could possibly meet up and combine into a larger herd. It was starting to seem like no matter where we went there was going to be a huge herd blocking our path. Our hope for finding a safe place was starting to diminish and we were all beginning to think we were going to be on the road forever. That would not be a good option because eventually gas supplies would run out and we would be absolutely screwed.

Daryl's POV

While everyone was pouring over the map Rick asked me to go hunt with him. I agreed because that owl I shot earlier was not going to be enough to hold any of us over for the day. The women went off to a stream with T-Dog to collect water and wash our clothes as best they could. We were walking and I was trying to track any animal that I could when Rick tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and he was pointing toward the distance. I swear if I was that kind of person I would have jumped for joy with what I was seeing. Ahead of us no more than a mile away was a prison. From what Rick and I could see the yard was filled with walkers but it looked like there was nothing there we couldn't handle. Rick looked over at me smiling broadly and I was smiling just as big we turned around and started walking back toward the cars and Rick patted my back and let out a small laugh. We rejoined the group and I jogged over to Summer. Rick called the group together and we told everyone about finding the prison.

You could feel the mood in the group change. Everyone was starting to chatter happily and Rick said we should get ready to go and head over there. Everyone seemed to agree and hastily got into the cars to drive over to the prison. We pulled up out front of the gates and there were a few walkers roaming around the outer fence. It seemed like there were no holes in the fence so the walkers inside had to be prisoners and guards. Hopefully the prison had fallen early and there were still some supplies inside that we could use. I saw Rick nod at me from the driver seat of the Hyundai and I climbed off the bike. Summer had taken to giving Harry to Beth for car rides because she didn't want him on the bike unless absolutely necessary because after the first time he was on the bike he got really sick. Luckily for us on one of our stops we were able to pick up some extra ammo and I found Summer a bow for herself. She nodded to me after she saw Rick's signal and also climbed off the bike. We both pulled the bows from our back and were taking out the walkers around the fence.

"Should we try to get the ones inside?" she asked me.

"Nah, I don't know what Rick's plan is, I don't want to go shooting arrows and then not be able to retrieve them," I replied.

"Good call," she said, "duck."

I crouched down and I felt the breeze of the arrow flying over my head and heard the sickening sound of it piercing the skull of the walker that was behind me. I stood back up and we surveyed the area. We had cleaned it out and began walking to our targets to collect our arrows. Once we returned to the bike I nodded at Rick again and everyone climbed out of the cars.

"Nice shooting," Rick said to Summer, "Daryl said you were a good shot with a bow, but this is the first time I think I've seen it."

"Thanks," she said and blushed.

As we all crowded around each other Rick told us the plan. We were going to take the prison yard by nightfall. He started delegating who was to do what in order to get everything done in a quick and safe fashion. He told Summer and I to take one tower and Hershel and Carl to take the other. For what we needed to do Summer and I replaced our crossbows with guns. He then told Maggie, Glenn, and Beth to lead the walkers away from the gates so he could shut it. We made our way up the one tower and began taking out walkers that were advancing on Rick. He ran and shut the inner gate closing off the walkers in the actual prison area from where we were going to make camp for the night.

"He did it!" Summer shouted.

"Light it up!" I shouted and the four of us began firing off rounds killing as many walkers as we could before we ran out of ammo.

We killed most of them and climbed down from the tower to help Rick with the few we missed. Everyone else filed into the yard and I don't think any of us have seen the group this happy before. At least not for a long time. Carol brought Harry over to Summer and I and everyone went to bring the cars in and we set up camp. As night fell Rick was patrolling the fences and everyone was making dinner from whatever left over food we had. I decided to skip out on dinner and take watch. I climbed on top of one of the prison buses that were turned on their side and kept a look out into the distance.

Summer's POV

I noticed Daryl skip out on dinner and go to be a look out while Rick was patrolling the fences for what seemed like the millionth time. Those two needed to take a break from being in charge and just enjoy some food and enjoy the fact that for the first time in months we had somewhere safe and secure to stay.

"That's his third time around, if any part of it was compromised he'd have found it by now," Hershel said.

I put some food in a bowl and brought it over to Daryl. I managed to climb up on the bus without spilling anything.

"If I didn't bring you any you'd never eat," I said handing him the bowl.

"Thanks," he said, "little Shane over there has quite the appetite."

"Don't be mean!" I said rubbing my shoulder, "You know how I ate when I was like that."

"You ok?" he asked me.

"Running around carrying Harry, it's taking a toll on me," I said.

He put the bowl down and licked his fingers clean and began to massage my shoulders.

"I can take him, ya know," he said.

"Not with the bow you cant," I said, "and besides you need to be able to help out if we get over run by a herd. Let's go back, were not gonna be breached tonight and you need some sleep."

"I'll go down first," he said and climbed down.

He helped me down and we walked back over to the group. Rick finally stopped checking the fences and came over to talk about the next step of the plan. He told us all to get some rest because we were going to take the prison in the morning and that he was going to spend the night standing guard. We all did our best to get some sleep because we were anxious to get started on clearing this place out.