I swung my axe down hard, my body away from the corpse reaching out for me. It fell forwards, and I flicked my wrist back, causing the serrations to grind against the bone as the weapon was released.

Neither Maggie or Glenn said a word, just walking towards the back door of the house. My lips pressed into a thin line, but I followed them anyway. Rick had taken Carl, Daryl and T-Dog to clear the house with him, and he asked the three of us to take care of the perimeter before joining them inside. He wanted us to wait at the back when we were done, giving them a chance to at least clear the first floor.

Glenn gave two quiet knocks on arrival to signal that we were finished, and the door was pulled open, revealing Rick and Carl in a small kitchen. Glenn and Maggie entered first, and Rick closed the door just as I had taken one step inside. My eyebrows knitted together, and I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, but he ignored the look.

"Start clearing up," was his only instruction, and he turned into the hallway.

T-Dog and Maggie started by grabbing one of the bodies in the kitchen, before they all followed Rick into the main hallway. Carl began opening and closing the cupboards in search of food, also ignoring my presence. I decided to follow the others into the hallway.

My eyes wandered to the double door at the front of the hallway, where Rick was waving for the others to join us from, before everyone piled into the house and passed me to the living room. Daryl also passed me, coming from upstairs holding what appeared to be an owl he was plucking feathers from as he entered the living room. I didn't bother looking twice, this was nothing new.

Unsure of what to do, I leaned back against the entryway to the living room, and stared at the opposite wall, shrinking back as far as I could to not get in anyone's way. I didn't realise I had been pulling at my clothes until my hand dropped the sleeve of the shirt tied around my waist. There was a quiet voice near me, but I didn't hear anything until someone tapped my hand.

Glenn leaned back now he had my attention, and nodded to the ground in front of him. "Help me?"

I stared down at the walker for a second, and without answering, I leaned down to grab the legs to help Glenn move the body. I couldn't hide the frown as he forced me to drop the corpse on the pile that had been built up by the wall at the bottom of the stairs. I dropped the legs and straightened up.

"Can't we move them outside?" It was a stupid question, one that was answered only with a stern glare from Rick that caused me to wince.

Sorry I asked.

It scared me that he didn't have to say anything anymore, everything he would've said a few months back were all clear enough in the one look. It would put everyone in the open, draw the walkers' attention, and take too long.

When he was sure he made his point, he walked to the front doors and pushed them closed. He walked past me and Glenn to join the rest of the group, not giving us a second glance.

Glenn gave me a pitiful look, tapping my arm as he walked passed into the living room. I followed him into the room, sitting on the ground in front of him and Maggie who had both resided on the sofa.

Carl was at the other end of the room, two cans in front of him in the ground. I was thankful that he found food, until I caught a glimpse of the label. Pebbles Tinned Dog Food. He was using a tin opener to open one of the cans.

Great.

Rick was at my side, peering from the window until he heard the scraping of the tin opener, and turned to face Carl, who had just managed to peel the lid off of the can. Carl stopped what he was doing as Rick walked across the room, grabbing the tin from in front of Carl and reading the label. As he turned around, he chucked across the room.

"Psst," T-Dog whistled, nodding to the window he was sitting by. The signal was clear, nobody even had to look to know what it meant. Walkers were coming.

"Fuck's sake," I felt myself whisper.

Rick lowered his hand to me as the others ran past and out to the cars. I took his hand as he yanked me up to my feet, and we followed after them, last in the line. He pushed me ahead of him as we ran, making sure to keep our steps as quiet as possible.

Everyone had shoved their things into the boots, and I watched as Maggie ran away for a second, grabbing an axe that had been jammed into a log behind the shed. She ran back towards us as a walker rounded the small building, snarling when it saw her. Glenn held the boot open for her to throw the axe inside, closing it when she was finally ready.

"In, quick," he pushed my arm and I climbed into the car, sliding into the middle seat so Maggie and Glenn had room to sit either side of me.

Hershel drove off behind the others, and I heard a quiet tapping on the back window before the walker behind us was just out of reach.

We drove for around 20 minutes to get away from the walkers before stopping the cars in the middle of a long road. Beth got out of the front seat, walking to the boot to grab the axe that Maggie grabbed at the last house.

Glenn reached across me to grab the map from the front of the car, before both he and Maggie took a step outside. I followed them, only because I knew now that they would be talking about the travel plans, and Rick told me that I should always know where I was.

Rick was leaving Carl on watch at the front of the vehicles, as Glenn rolled the map out on the car. I stared down at it, still basically looking at a bunch of nonsense lines and words that made no sense to me.

T-Dog said what everyone else must have been thinking as Rick joined the crowd, slipping in next to me. "We've got no place left to go."

"When this herd meets up with this one, we'll be cut off," Maggie said, waving a hand over the map as she spoke. "We'll never make it south."

Daryl turned to Glenn, "What do you say, it's about 150 heads?"

"That was last week, could be twice that now."

"This river could have delayed them," Hershel suggested. "If we move fast, we might have a shot to tear right through this."

"Yeah, but if this group joins with that one, they could spill out this way."

"So we're blocked," Maggie huffed.

"Only thing to do is double back at 27th and swing towards Greenville," Rick said.

T-Dog frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. "We picked through that already, it's like we spent the winter going in circles."

"Yeah, I know. I know," Rick nodded. "At Newnan we'll push west. Haven't been through the area. We can't keep going house to house. We need to find some place to hold up for a few weeks."

"Alright," T-Dog said. "Is it cool if we get to the creek before we head out? It won't take long. We gotta fill up on water, we can boil it later."

"Knock yourselves out," Rick said, waving a hand at him.

I walked away from the others, pushing myself to sit on the bonnet of the truck. Beth was still keeping watch down at the back end of the vehicles. Carl was at the other end, keeping watch in the other direction, his eyes scouring through the woods.

Deciding I should probably be doing something, I just kept an eye on the woods like Beth, ready to call out or kill whatever wandered out from the trees. It was quiet, though. The walkers that had been chasing us had not caught up yet, and we were safe, at least for a while.

"Ace!" Daryl called, snapping me from my thoughts. "C'mon, goin' huntin'."

Rick walked towards Daryl, holding a rifle in his hands, which indicated he was going too. I didn't need a rifle, it would be very unlikely that I would be able to kill anything anyway, since we had to be more careful about using the guns. Everything was too loud.

I hopped down from the front of the truck and followed them out into the woods, walking last in line as we started hunting. We had barely been walking for five minutes before we came across a train track that we decided to follow. Everything was quiet for a while, no walkers. Until—

"Ace," Rick nodded, his gaze passing me.

I followed his look to a walker that was heading our way through the trees. Suppressing the eye roll, I grabbed the handle of the climbing axe that was tied around my holster and pulled it away, swinging it back and straight down into the walker's skull. It landed with a thunk! and the walker fell still in front of me.

"Gettin' good with that thing," Daryl acknowledged.

I only hummed in response.

The axe was almost the same as using a machete or a bat, except that it had a long spike on the end that meant it would always take out a walker in one go. I found it easy to use as a weapon even though it's not what it was designed for.

Then again, neither was a bat.

I secured the axe back onto my belt, holstered just behind where the gun was. I know Rick told me having weapons at the same time would interfere, but now it would be the same if I kept the axe on the same side as my knife. The axe was so much more difficult to use crossdraw, so this made the most sense.

We continued walking for a little while, managing to find only a little bit to hunt. Maybe the mistake was following the track, I don't know. The trees cleared off at some points, giving views of some secluded roads a couple hundred yards away, but still, nothing we could use.

"That's a shame," Daryl said, which caught my attention.

I stopped and followed his gaze towards a building. A prison. In the front, there were guard towers and a big green field, littered with walkers. The actual building was behind, and it was huge. I could only imagine that there were just as many—no, more walkers inside.

A prison had no exits, apart from the gates leading down to the front, restricting any escape the people had inside from the walkers. I highly doubted there was anyone left living inside the building.

My eyes moved to Rick who was quiet, didn't even have a reply for Daryl's statement. It was a shame, but there was nothing we could do. Was there? Well, Rick sure seemed to think so, still staring at the building

"It's perfect."

"Ya sure this is what ya wanna do?" Daryl asked. "There's a lotta walkers in there."

"They were locked out of the walkways, we can cut our way into there, take out the ones in the field and close the gate, then we move inwards," Rick explained, not looking back at Daryl as he spoke.

I trusted Rick, but this plan was big, there was no way we could pull something like this off. It was like Wiltshire all over again, the place was perfect, but there were so many walkers. Wiltshire was bigger though, more places to hide walkers. The prison was just one building, one big building, but we could kill the walkers in a more controlled environment.

The potential was there, this could work, but I was sceptical.

"There can only be so many," he finished.

There was a beat as Daryl thought about what he was saying, but he eventually said: "S'long as ya know what yer doin'."

"That place is bound to have generators too," Rick added, and it took me a second before I realised he was looking at me. "They'd need the power if there was an outage, less chance of a riot. In a few days we'll fetch the cars, the tools, and then I'll need you to take a look at it, see if there's any chance it could still run."

"I don't want to think that far ahead yet," I told him. "Can't we just see if we can clear the place first?"

"This can work," he told me.

I hope so, I thought. Rick hadn't been this excited about a place for months. Wiltshire was the last time, and even then I struggled to see how we could've lived there. Travelling was hard for me, and I wanted nothing more than to find a place where we could live, but nothing felt right since the farm.

Rick's hope was making this easier to believe, but part of me wanted him to stop, in case it didn't work. He would be crushed, and sometimes, it was hard to get him back. He'd be the same as he had for most of Winter, though not all of it was bad.

The others had returned to the cars by the time we arrived. T-Dog was leaning against the front of the Hyundai, and was the first one to notice Rick who marched straight to the vehicles.

"We still have those wire cutters?"

"Should do," T-Dog straightened up, pushing himself away from the car, "in the truck. Why?"

"We found a place," Rick said. "Somewhere to hunkerdown."

"A place?" Glenn stood up straight.

"A prison."

"There's walkers inside," I chimed, still unsure, but wanting to make sure everyone knew what we were walking into before it happened.

"But they're isolated," Rick added. "We can take them out safely behind the fences. There can only be so many."

"And there's no breaches?" Hershel asked. "It's secure?"

"It's a low security prison," Rick said, "fences instead of walls, but they're still fences."

"We can't be sure about the breaches until we get inside," Daryl said.

"But none of the walls or fences are down in the front," Rick was explaining.

"It has defences: fences, walls, guardtowers. It would be safe. If we keep the levels of walkers outside the fences down they'll never get in," Rick was explaining. "If a herd ever passes by we'd be able to shelter inside until they move on. Not only that but there's a field, a big one that we can use for crops, a small pond just outside the fences. ."

"And there's no one inside?" Lori asked.

"Not as far as I could see," Daryl said.

"There's so many jumpsuits that I don't know how anyone could be alive in there," I said.

"Which is good news for us," Rick said. "We'll follow the tracks and break into the side. We know the walkway is clear, but I don't want to risk taking the cars down to the front gate and having it overrun, couldn't see all of it."

"What do we need?" T-Dog asked.

"Bring the guns, rifles would be good for the towers. I know it's loud but we don't have to worry about that inside the fences. The wire cutters to get inside, and some wire to fix the hole, don't want anything coming in from the outside. Anyone else, bring whatever you need: food, water, clothes. I don't know when we'll be back for the cars, but it'll have to be soon so no one takes them."

"I can take out the spark plugs so they won't start?" I suggested.

"Yes, do that now so we can get down to the prison as soon as possible, I want the field before tonight."

"I'll help ya with that," Daryl said, glancing towards me.

I nodded, turning to the truck to grab my tools.

The cutters snapped as they cut through the wire. We all stayed close to Rick, waiting for him to break through the fence so we could reach the safety of the walkway. There were walkers outside, too.

Glenn shoved one of the stragglers into the fence, and Maggie came up at his side, taking it down. I tore my eyes away when I realised that they had taken care of it, and watched up the side of the bank where we ran down.

"Watch the back-side!" T-Dog called.

"Got it," Lori answered.

It was relatively calm, but nearby walkers towards the front and back of the fences had seen us running down towards the fence and were now making their way over to us. I had been so focused on watching for walkers that I didn't even realise when Rick had finished cutting through the fence.

Daryl shoved my shoulder. "Inside, quick."

I grabbed the barbed wire on one side, using it as leverage to pull myself through. Beth grabbed my elbow, helping me keep my balance as I managed to squeeze both myself and my bag through the hold.

Rick was the last one through, and as soon as he had gotten under the fence, Daryl and Glenn started tying the hole together with some insulated red wire we had scavenged from a garage long before.

Just as they had tied the bottom off and was pulling the slack tighter, a walker slammed itself against the fence, making Glenn jump back. I watched the fence intently as it bulged inwards, something it wouldn't have done before we cut it open.

"It's gonna hold," Daryl said after a second. "C'mon."

As I turned I noticed the others running down towards the front, to the entrance gate where cars could drive in. I took off after them, trying my best to ignore the tens of prisoners that were lined up against the fence.

There was a gate that connected the walkway with the vehicle entrance, near the front guard tower. Two bigger gates separated the tower from the field and the outside, leaving a space which I assumed prisoners would not be allowed had this been before the apocalypse. I glanced around for any walkers in the path ahead of us, or even listened for some inside the guard tower, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing.

"It's perfect," Rick said again. "If we can shut that gate, prevent more from filling the yard, we can pick off these walkers. We'll take the field by tonight."

"So how do we shut the gate?" Hershel asked.

"I'll go," Glenn said. "You guys cover me."

"No, suicide run," Maggie was shaking her head.

"I'm the fastest."

"I can go," I said.

Rick shook his head, raising a hand to stop everyone, "No, you three take Beth and T-Dog over there, draw as many walkers as you can and pop them through the fence."

"Got it," Maggie said, turning around to grab Beth and T-Dog.

"Come on," Glenn said. "Wanna kill as many as we can before he opens this gate."

I nodded, following as we all ran through a gate into the walkway between the fields and the outside. There were walkers outside the prison that were pushing on the fence to get us as we ran past.

"Come on!" Glenn was yelling.

The ones nearby in the field were immediately interested in the noise, as that turned before stalking over to us. I slammed my hands against the fence as we stopped, jumping back as three leaned up against it, pushing the mesh wire towards us. I kept my eyes on it for a second, wondering whether it would hold, and when it stayed up, I pulled my knife out and stuck it through the fence into the prisoner's brain.

Glenn got one next to it, using a metal pipe to destroy the brains through the fences. It was better than the knife for this, it was longer, but with the fence in the way, I couldn't use the axe for this.

"Come on!" He continued, calling more and more over to us.

"Hey!" It was strange shouting for them, calling them over. I didn't know what to shout, it was just weird. The others were doing a better job than me either way, and the walkers seemed interested despite all the shouting.

I tried watching Rick over the bodies. He was being covered by the people in the towers, I could tell, because when one got near him, a bolt flung into its head. Rick turned to look at it, his head rising to the far guard tower that we were next to when we entered the prison. I could barely see Daryl in that distance.

Soon enough, the walkers near us had lost interest when they realised Rick was running up towards the gate. Maybe it was because of the bullets coming from the towers, they were louder than us. We all yelled as loud as we could to get them back, but they were too focused on the body that they'd actually be able to reach.

"No, no, no!" I panicked. "This way!"

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Come on!" Beth was yelling.

Rick stopped harshly, and I flinched when I noticed dirt flying up at his feet as bullets slammed into the ground before him.

It took him a beat to get over that panic and he continued up towards the gate near the building. There were so many walkers near that fence, more and more coming into the field when they saw him.

He kicked down one that was trying to leave the courtyard, before pulling the gate closed. He used something that I couldn't really see to hood it together, stopping anymore walkers from entering the field.

When he spun around, he noticed the walkers that had started to follow him up to the fences.

"Oh my God," Glenn smiled, turning to me. "He did it."

The smile worked its way onto my face unconsciously, and I laughed. It worked. I had been sceptical, after seeing the field full of walkers with more and more coming at please, but the gate was closed now. We could clear this place in chunks, just as Rick had said. This was a win.

There was a very faint yell in the background, one who I recognised to be Daryl. "Light it up!"

I holstered my knife, pulling my gun out to start shooting the closest walkers in the field. It had only taken a minute before all of the ones left over had fallen to the ground, and I took a second to look across the field for any more standing corpses, but there weren't any.

"It's done," Glenn smiled. "That's all of them."

"Come on!" T-Dog grinned, walking past the group and running towards the front gate.

I walked after them, watching as Daryl and Carol appeared at the other walkway, rounding the guard tower to the gate that led to the prison. They were both beaming, smiling at the field we had just taken.

"Fantastic!" Carol beamed.

"Nice shootin'," Daryl followed as Hershel tapped him on the back.

"Are you okay?" Carol asked as she passed Lori.

"I haven't felt this good in weeks."

Maggie and Beth walked ahead of me, following their dad into the field. Glenn walked at my side, as T-Dog stopped to close the gate so Lori didn't have to. She smiled as she passed me, squeezing my shoulder before walking ahead.

Carol spun around, letting out a joyous noise as she called out: "We haven't had this much space since we left the farm!"

A walker lifted its head, but Glenn ran over towards it, stomping on its back and slamming the pipe down into the back of its head. He smiled and looked back at us, as T-Dog laughed, raising his arms in the air and yelling.

"Woo!"

We spent the night in the field, finally safe enough to make a fire to cook our food. It was safe, so safe that most of us had decided to rest at the fire. Daryl gave them some of the things he hunted before walking to the flipped over bus to take watch.

I even had the time to pull some of the survival guides from my bag, only now realising that some of them were training manuals for people in the military. The badge labelled DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE clued me in one that one. This one had much more interesting chapters than some of the others, as it talked about different crafts for combat, not survival. Well, in this case it seemed like the same thing. The contents had things like smoke or incendiary bombs (which I assumed were just molotovs) and these things were the first chapters I flipped to.

I pulled the light up hat from my bag, realising that reading by the fire light was going to make me sit in an awkward position to actually read it. I found it hard to think of scenarios where I would be able to use some of these things, but I had some ideas.

Maggie reached across Glenn, placing a small metal dish between us. "Eat, the both of you."

I glanced up from the book.

"Mmm. . ." Glenn muttered. "Just like mom used to make."

He wasn't being funny or anything, it was the best thing we'd eaten in a little while. At least for the last week, all we had been eating was the tinned stuff. I never thought I would get sick of baked beans, but it was happening.

After finishing the first piece, I put the bone back into the dish, and then looked back down at the book, reading over the reactions.

"Tomorrow we'll put all the bodies together," T-Dog said. "Want to keep them away from that water. Now, if we can dig a canal under the fence, we'll have plenty of fresh water."

"The soil is good," Hershel added. "We could plant some seed. Grow some tomatoes, cucumbers, soybeans."

I barely heard anything that either of them said,

"That's his third time around," this made me glance up, first to Hershel, and then back behind me to see Rick doing another lap of the fence. He was checking for any breaches, weaknesses in the wire, something I said I'd do, but he just told me he'd do it himself. "If there was any part of it compromised, he'd have found it by now."

Better safe than sorry, I guess. I didn't want to add any tension, so I kept my mouth shut and looked back down at my book. Maybe he was paranoid, maybe he was just wasting time, at least what he was doing was making sure the group was safe.

"This'll be a good place to have the baby. Safe."

I could only imagine that Lori nodded or something, because there was no actual reply that I heard. Though there was a good chance that I'd just missed it. I assumed I had missed quite a lot while trying to understand the book.

"Ace," Maggie said, interrupting me from the book. I glanced up, but when I met her eyes, she just nodded down at the dish that still had some food in it.
"Can't," I said simply, looking back down at the book. "Busy."

"Don't care," she copied my simple language. "Eat."

She reached across Glenn, grabbing the dish and dropping it in the centre of the manual. I huffed, moving it to the side, but grabbing some of the meat so Maggie was happy. I pulled my knees up so she couldn't do it again, and to get a better look at some of the small diagrams down the side, images of what could contain the explosive materials while shoving some of the food into my mouth.

"Man, she is out of it," T-Dog said. "Do you think if we take her in a car like this, she won't comment on our driving?"

Hershel chuckled, which made me glance towards him out of the corner of my eye. "Like giving a toddler a colouring book?"

"A toddler wouldn't be learning military grade chemistry," I muttered.

"Apparently not," T-Dog said, and I thought he was agreeing with me until he continued, "she would still comment on our driving."

Drive properly and I won't have to.

"Military grade chemistry?" Glenn asked after a beat.

"That's not frightening," Lori said, leaning back a little.

"I'm busy," I reminded them.

Some of the recipes were simple enough, sugar and some kind of explosives to make a smoke bomb. And the sugar could be replaced with other things to make the bombs more dangerous.

Nails would make a good shrapnel, projected by the bomb. Something like that could kill a lot of walkers in a controlled space. Of course I'd have to make sure that I didn't get hit by any nails pulling that off, because it would also just shred through my skin, but it would also just cut through walkers like nothing.

These would all be good ideas if I wasn't terrified of these things going off in my face while I made them. The book talked about how to do this safely, but even then, something could always be faulty, go wrong.

Maybe I'd wait on the bombs for a little while.

"Bethy, sing 'Paddy Reilly' for me," Hershel picked up after a while. "I haven't heard that, I think, since your mother was alive."

"Daddy, not that one," Maggie begged, "please."

"How about 'Parting Glass'?"

"No one wants to hear," Beth said quietly, subtly.

"Why not?" Glenn asked.

"Okay . . ." she was quiet for a few seconds, nervous, but she did start singing. "Of all the money, e'er I had, I spent it in good company. And all the harm, that e'er I've ever done alas it was to none but me. And all I've done for want of wit—"

Everybody listened, and I glanced up for a second, but when I saw that Beth wasn't looking at anyone in particular, I turned back to the book. She was nervous, she didn't want to be singing and didn't want anyone looking at her, so I would at least try and help on that front.

There were footsteps around me which caught my attention, both Daryl and Carol neared the group, standing a few feet away as they listened to Beth. Rick had also come down from the fences, squatting beside Lori and staring at the fire, at his food.

Again, I looked away.

When the song reached the second verse, Maggie joined in, "Oh, all the comrades that e'er I had, were sorry for my going away. And all the sweethearts, that e'er I had, would wish me one more day to stay. But since it falls unto my lot, that I should rise, and you should not. I'll gently rise and I'll softly call, good night and joy be with you all, good night and joy be with you all."

And Hershel said: "Beautiful."

I closed my book for the night, and clicked the button in the hat to turn off the light just as Rick started talking. "Better all turn in. I'll take watch over there," he pointed behind me, to where the flipped bus was. "We've got a big day tomorrow."

"What do you mean?" Glenn asked.

Rick took a moment to choose his words, but eventually started explaining himself. "Look, I know we're all exhausted; this was a great win. But we gotta push just a little bit more. Most of the walkers are dressed as guards or prisoners, looks like this place fell pretty early. Could mean the supplies may be intact. They have an infirmary, a commissary."

"An armoury?" Daryl asked.

"That would be outside the prison itself, but not too far away. Warden's offices would have info on the location," Rick nodded, before turning back to the others, finishing his list: "Weapons, food, medicine. This place could be a gold mine."

"We're dangerously low on ammo," Hershel said. "We'll run out before we make a dent."

"That's why we gotta go in there, hand to hand. After all we've been through, we can handle it, I know it. These assholes don't stand a chance."

The next morning everyone was getting their gear ready to break into the courtyard and clear out the walkers there. He asked everyone who was not going to join him to draw walkers to the fence and kill them just as I had done yesterday.

"I want everyone to stay in tight formation," Rick was explaining to his group. "People watching every direction so no one gets snuck up on from behind. No one leaves the group or this isn't going to work."

"I want to help," I said when he had finished.

"I don't know," Glenn started. "Maybe it'd be best if you stayed here—"

I gave him a look that made him stop his sentence early, before turning back to Rick.

"If you're sure," was all he said, before walking to the gate.

"Just . . . stick by me," Glenn said.

I nodded, following him to the gate.

"Ready?" Rick asked, glancing back in case anyone had answered.

When no one did, he unhooked the clasp and pulled the gate to the side, opening it. He, T-Dog and Daryl entered first, and as promised, I stuck close to Glenn and Maggie as the six of us formed a circle, looking in all directions like Rick had asked for. The gate rattled closed behind us.

"Daryl," Rick called out, and I heard a walker being killed behind me, but forced myself not to look, keeping an eye in my own space.

I had gone to step out for a walker, but Glenn got to it first, plunging the metal pole he had used before straight into the walker's stull, lowering it down as the weight pulled the pipe down with it. Rick had also swung at one at my side, but as it fell to the ground beside me and I stepped over the body, its head moved, signalling that it was still alive. Glenn stopped for a second to slam the pipe down into its skull, pushing me along closer to Rick who had just killed another walker.

"Get tight! Get tight!" Glenn was yelling.

More and more walkers came from every direction, more coming towards us from where Maggie was looking. The courtyard was massive, lots of places for all of the walkers to surround us from.

I glanced up at a path in front of me where walkers could also come from, to find one coming our way, one that had ignored the people yelling for it by the fence.

"Ace!" Rick called.

"I know!"

I took a step forward, swinging my axe down and killing it immediately. Still, we all moved up, closer to the back end of the courtyard and towards a door that led inside. That had to be where we were going next, which kind of worried me with the number of walkers that could potentially be in there.

As we started nearing a bridge that led between two different parts of the building, T-Dog ran across, through the group, to a riot shield near one of the walls.

"Don't break ranks!" Rick yelled at him.

"We need that!" He leant down to grab what seemed to be a riot shield from the ground, securing it on his arm.

"Hey!" Rick called again, signalling that there was a walker coming his way.

T-Dog lunged the shield forwards, knocking the walker down in front of him before running back to his position in the group.

"Maggie!" Rick called.

She ran past me and Glenn, swinging her machete down. Glenn grabbed her arm, guiding her back towards the group safely, as we neared the door.

"Almost there!" Rick said.

The metal door squeaked as he pushed it open, and I expected him to walk inside, but he wasn't looking at the door anymore. I followed his gaze past the entrance and around the corner to another double barbed wire gate, with at least 20 walkers behind it, more if that area led off to a different part of the prison, and it was most likely that it did. The problem was that the gate was open, and the walkers would definitely come out if they heard us.

Rick signalled for everyone to get back against the wall, but I just took a step to the side, in front of the door inside that was still open. Daryl walked to my side, holding his bow up, at the walkers ahead.

What we didn't expect were for two walkers, both in full riot gear, helmet and all, walking out from behind a wheelie bin ahead of us. Worse than that, two more rounded the corner, near from where the gate was open.

Daryl took a step forwards, shooting off the bolt at the walker ahead of him, but it just bounced back off the helmet. He took a few steps backwards, and quickly pulled out his knife instead.

Shit, I thought. How the fuck could we kill those?

"Move," Glenn called in a low voice, and I looked to my side to see a walker leaving the cell block, wearing what looked like a gas mask. The rest of it was protected with the same riot gear as the others.

I leapt forward towards Rick, and watched as Maggie swung her machete down at the walker and it just bounced off of the plastic part of the gas mask. Everyone exchanged a look of utter horror.

In front of me, Rick had pushed one of the walkers in the riot gear down, and I followed after him. As the walker sat up, I swung the climbing pick upwards, hoping to aim underneath the helmet. There was a sharp THUD! and I hoped that meant it was dead, that the pick had hit the top of the skull, but the guard reached out to grab at my leg. It was then that I realised that the axe had slipped up the side, between the helmet and the skull.

"Fuck!"

"Careful!" Rick demanded.

I pulled the axe down hard, yanking it free of the helmet, and kicking the walker back with the leg it had been trying to pull at. When I got the axe free, I saw that the walkers behind the gate had now realised we were here, and started coming back out towards us.

I made sure the riot gear walker would stay where he was before turning and taking out some of the lesser armed prisoners. Rick pushed the rioted one back to the ground, before turning to the gate.

"Daryl!" He called, slicing at a walker with the machete, and sprinting to the gate. Daryl followed after him, killing a woman walker on the way, and helping Rick slide the gate closed. Rick pulled the chain out that he had used on the gate the others were waiting behind, before clasping both the gate and the fence.

"Keep the chain tight!" I called out nervously, watching as all the walkers started pushing against the mesh fence.

When I turned around, I saw Maggie trying to hold off one of the walkers with riot gear, pushing the helmet back with her hand. She swung her other hand upwards, plunging the knife under the helmet as I had tried to do with the axe, which worked. The corpse fell down in front of her, and she smiled towards Glenn and T-Dog.

"See that?" She called.

Glenn grabbed another riot walker's helmet, pushing it back so T-Dog could slip his weapon underneath, just as Daryl ran up behind the third one, pushing its head forward to strike down into the back of its head.

Rick kicked at the knee of the walker with the gas mask so it fell down, and then again at the chest to get it to the floor. I grimaced as he ripped the mask off of its face, pulling away rotting skin and revealing bulging eyes. He pulled his arm back and slammed the machete down vertically into the head, almost splitting the top half of the skull from the bottom.

Maggie took out the last walker, just plunging her knife under the helmet as she had done before. When we looked around and all the walkers had been taken out in this area, Glenn turned back to the main gate, to let the others in, I assumed.

"Stop," Rick called him back.

"Well, it looks secure," Glenn said.

"Not from the look of that courtyard over there," Daryl said, gesturing to the gate. "And that's a civilian."

"So the interior could be overrun by walkers from outside the prison," T-Dog said.

"Well, if there's walls down, then, what are we gonna do?" Glenn asked. "We can't rebuild this whole place."

"I mean, we can fix walls," I said, "just not now."

"We can't risk a blind spot," Rick walked towards the door we originally planned on going in. "We have to push in."

I soon realised I hated that idea.

It was quiet inside.

The one walker that came out of the door with the gas mask seemed to be all there was inside, but it was still scary to be there. The chaos that happened here was obvious, and the dark, shadowy rooms were giving it an eerie feeling.

Down a small set of stairs, there was a small common room area with metal tables, and stairs that led up to a guard post where someone could observe the prisoners. From what I could see, there was a body leaning against the glass of that room.

Rick waved his machete, telling everyone to check in a different direction as he headed towards and up the stairs to the watch place. Maggie followed him most of the way but turned to a barred door in the room, pushing it, but it didn't open.

There was a larger gate on the other side of the room that Daryl tried, but that was also locked. When I looked up to Rick in the guards post, he held up a set of keys to Daryl, and then two fingers, signalling there were two sets.

When he came back down the stairs and walked to the larger gate that Daryl was standing by. He nodded for everyone to follow him, before reaching through the gate to unlock it with the keys he found.

Inside this room looked to be full of cells, small rooms on two floors each with the same barred doors. There were two stairs back to back that lead up to a walkway, and the upper floor cells, and at the other end of the room was another door like the one Maggie tried before. I assumed that each led to more areas of the prison.

We walked along the bottom floor, glancing in each of the cells. Some had bodies in, but they were not moving, maybe shot dead? They did not wake up, which made me believe that they couldn't be walkers. The prison guards could have killed some of the ones who were bit or turned.

I walked past Maggie and Glenn to the other end of the room, checking the door to see if it would open. This was another way to get further into the prison, and every so often I heard sounds that I did not like, and this door being open meant this room was not secure. When I pushed my hand against it, it rattled as the metal lock hit the concrete frame. I pulled it and the same thing happened.

There was a sound from the top floor, and I spun around, jumping back to see Rick and Daryl around a cell on the top floor. There was a walker locked in one of the cells, to which Rick grabbed its arm, pulling it closer to the bars, allowing Daryl to kill it.

They checked the last cells, but found nothing, so I assumed that was it.

"That was it," Rick called, looking down over the railing to me. "Is that door locked?"

I nodded.

"Good, that means this cell block is secure. Tomorrow we can push deeper into the prison, but for now, the mess hall and this cell block will be enough," Rick walked to the stairs, nodding to Glenn. "Go get the others, any stuff left outside."

"On it," Glenn said.

"The rest of us, let's get this place cleaned up."

Daryl was still up on the perch, using a set of keys Rick had given him to unlock the cells, and drag all the bodies out. There was metal clanging on the stairs behind me as Rick walked down, to one of the back cells in the room.

"Ace," he called, nodding down to the body in front of him.

I walked over, grabbing the legs of the corpse and walking the bodies out of the cell block. We led the body all the way to outside the prison, and Rick directed to just drop it anywhere, seeing as there were tens of bodies out here anyway.

I glanced at the gate we had to close, still covered with walkers trying to get through to us. It only reminded me that we had not completely taken this place yet, that there could still potentially be a hundred walkers inside. The appearance of a woman in a purple shirt amongst the prisoners added to that worry.

"When do you want to start tomorrow?" I asked, following Rick back inside.

He stopped as we entered the door, looking at me before placing his hands on his belt. "Actually, I want you to stay here tomorrow," Rick said.

I frowned, helping him pull the body out to the common room area, "You don't want me to help?"

"It's not that," he shook his head. "I need someone around here to keep an eye on things. Heshel may be busy with Lori, and I just need someone here making sure it stays safe."

"You don't think it is?"

"This cell block will be, the doors seem okay, but we've had things go wrong before. And the fences outside, that courtyard? They've lasted so far, but if enough walkers pile up the whole thing could come down. I need someone keeping track of this stuff."

"And you want that to be me?"

"I do," he nodded.

"Why?"

"I wanna know that while I'm in there, then there's someone back here that can handle things," Rick said.

When he was sure that I had no more arguments, Rick squeezed my shoulder, before taking off back towards the cell block. I sighed, following him and watching as he walked back up the metal stairs to help Daryl drop the bodies down. Daryl kicked one of the prisoners under the railing of the stairs, towards T-Dog.

Glenn returned with the others just then after with his arms full of items that we brought into the prison, including my bag. He swung it off his shoulder when he neared me, holding the strap out for me to grab.

"Thanks," I nodded.

Rick walked down the stairs behind me, evident from the metal clattering his shoes gave off. "What do you think?" he asked the others.

"Home, sweet, home," Glenn muttered.

"For the time being."

Lori stopped in the middle of the hallway, looking at all the cells. "It's secure?"

"This cell block is," Rick nodded.

"What about the rest of the prison?" Hershel asked.

"In the morning, we'll find the cafeteria and infirmary," Rick explained, placing his hands on his belt, nodding at his plan.

"We'll sleep in the cells?" Beth asked.

"I found keys on some guards," Rick gave another nod. "Daryl has a set too."

"I ain't sleeping in no cage," Daryl said. "I'll take the perch."

Everyone split off to find a cell.

SEASON 3!

I don't really have much to say about this, except that this is one of my most favourite seasons. So I hope you enjoy and hopefully I'll have another chapter on the way soon because I am just knocking these things out.

Let me know what you thought :)