Disclaimer- I do not own the Walking Dead
Enjoy.
Danny's POV
The voices we can hear coming through to our cell block sound urgent.
I pull out my gun, "Carl! Open the door". He hesitates. "Open it!"
As Carl rushes to try and open the door the Sheriffs voice comes through loud and clear. "Carl open the door. It's T-Dog".
Carl manages to open the door just as the make shift gurney comes into view. T-Dog is lying on it, unconscious and missing his lower leg. Wha... They cut it off?
Everyone starts speaking at once as those that didn't go into the tomb start panicking. I back out of the way as the gurney is steered into a cell.
Daryl and Merle take a few steps back before walking out of the cell block. I follow them out the door just as Daryl aims his crossbow at the door to the tombs. Merle stands about ten feet away to the left of Daryl with his gun raised at the same area. I move up along the wall on Daryl's right. Somethings coming and if it was Walkers the door would have been locked. Is it people?
The voices echo through and then five people who are clearly residents of this prison walk through.
"That's far enough", Daryl warns them, it makes them stop.
The guy at the front, long hair with a wife beater and his overalls tied at his waist gestures towards our cell block.
"Cell block C, cell four, that's mine Gringo. Let me in". Perfect.
"Todays your lucky day fellas" Daryl starts, You've been pardoned by the state of Georgia. You're free to go".
Wife beater ignores him. "What you got goin' on in there?"
Merle takes the tiniest of steps forward. "Ain't none of your fuckin' business. Get the fuck outta 'ere while you still can".
Wife beater is definitely the leader of the group. He yanks a gun out of the front of his overalls and points it straight at Daryl. I step around the pillar, my gun raised and aimed straight at the leader.
A huge guy in the back steps back with his arms raised. "Whoa, whoa. Tomas chill man. We're free. Let's just go".
Tomas sighs heavily like he's trying not to laugh sarcastically. "We ain't goin' nowhere. A group of civilians breaking into a prison they ain't got no business bein' in, got me thinkin' they're ain't no place for us to go".
"Why don't you go find out". Daryl offers.
The guy with the very prominent moustache looks at the tree of us in turn before backing up a few spaces. "We'll be goin' now".
"WE AIN'T LEAVIN'" Tomas raised voice echoes through out the entire room. I take another step forward, my gun aimed straight at the side of his head. Merle does the same thing opposite me.
One of the guys who has sense and has backed up reaches out to Tomas but doesn't quite touch him. "Put ya gun down man".
"It's my gun". Tomas really doesn't seem to understand when he's outnumbered. None of his group are willing to get into a fight but here he is, refusing to back down.
Merle pushes his gun right up against Tomas temple. "Give us the fuckin' gun".
"They ain't playin' man, give them the gun". Moustache man tries to reason with him and it seems to work. I reach out and grab the gun out of Tomas' hand, I then take a couple of steps back but I still don't lower mine.
Daryl now lowers his crossbow. "There ain't nothin' for you here."
Tomas nods towards the entrance to the C block cells. "How many of you in there?"
"You can't handle these", The Sheriff has returned. "Knowin' won't help you".
"You guys rob a bank or something. Why don't you take him to a hospital". Tomas question show that they have absolutely no clue on what the world is like now. Where have they been hiding?
"How long you been locked in the cafeteria". The Sheriff asks. Oh.
"Going on like ten months." Tomas shrugs like it's nothing.
"A riot broke out, never seen anything like it" The huge guy says.
"Attica on speed", Moustache guys offers up. I don't get his reference but I refrain from asking him, even though I really want to know. I'll ask Merle later.
"Ever heard about dudes going cannibal, dying, coming back to life? Crazy". The little guy by Tomas side finally says something.
"One guard looked out for us, locked us up in the cafeteria, told us to sit tight. Threw me that piece", Tomas gestures at the gun still in my hand. "Said he'd be right back".
"That was 292 days ago".
"94 according to my..."
"Shut up", Tomas cuts moustache guy off.
Merle sneers. "You shut up. The world is dead and if you stay here any longer then you will be to".
"There's nothing?"
"Nothin'. No rescue, no hospital and barely any people". Daryl delivers the bombshell they clearly don't know anything about.
"Ain't no way", Tomas doesn't believe but to be fair I don't blame him. I wouldn't if I'd been locked in a room and missed it all going down.
"Go and see for yourselves".
The Sheriff leads them out while the three of us take up the rear, still refusing to let our guards down.
"Good lord, they're all dead".
"You never said, how the hell did you get in here in the first place."
"Merle scoffs. "Through the front fuckin' gate".
The huge guy uses his pole to poke at one of the bodies on the ground. "So what is this, like a disease?"
"Yeah, but we're all infected." Sheriff answers for us.
"What do you mean infected?" Moustache mans asks, "Like aids or somethin'?"
My heart starts pounding, we can't talk about this. I step right up to Tomas and aim right at him.
"Why don't I just fucking show you. Get it over with so then the rest of you can get it and then get out of here. This is our prison now and you aren't welcome".
Tomas little friend raises his pole but the other three don't move.
"You couldn't shoot me". Tomas challenges me and my god am I prepared to show him how wrong he is.
Daryl's hand suddenly lands on my gun, forcing me to lower it. "She would! We have supplies. We'll give you some and some weapons if you leave peacefully. if we have to force you out, you get nothin'".
One of the good three holds his hands up. "We'll leave. We don't want no more trouble".
"We ain't leaving". Daryl's hand on my gun stops me from raising it back up to this insufferable man.
"We are. We don't stand a chance in there against them".
"We don't stand a chance out there either", Tomas argues.
"We did it for eight months, ain't no reason you can't". Merles voice is laced with annoyance.
"We want a vehicle". Tomas is finally listening.
"We'll give you some gas for you to find ya own car". Daryl offers.
Tomas doesn't say anything which I take as him finally agreeing.
Daryl finally lets go of my gun. "Stay out here while we gather some stuff".
The four of us gather to the side as the prisoners start walking around the yard either enjoying the fresh air for the first time in ten months or looking at the bodies on the ground.
"You're just gonna give them the supplies"?
"It's ours", Daryl tells the Sheriff. "So we decide what we do with it. I'd rather lose some food than have them living under the same roof as my family. Would you rather them be here with Lori, Beth... Carl?"
The Sheriff nods in understanding.
"Why don't you let me go and grab our medical stuff so you can give it to Herschel. We have bandages, sterilizing wipes, gloves. A lot of things you need". I offer up.
The Sheriff nods, "Thank you".
Our cars are still sat between the the main gates, they won't be brought up until we clear the bodies out of here.
"I'll come with you". Daryl and I start heading over.
I wait until we're out of earshot before asking him the important question. "You think it's a good idea to just let them go?"
"I don't know, they haven't done anythin' to us other than point a gun at us but we threatened them first. We can't just kill them."
"I know, I wasn't.."
"I just know they can't stay here". A hundred percent agree. We don't even know what they're in for and I doubt they'd be honest even if we asked. We can't have people that dangerous sleeping in the same building as us. "We gonna talk about you nearly shootin' him back there?"
I let out my breath rather harshly. "I don't know what happened. I just... I needed them to stop asking questions".
Daryl grabs my arm and forces me to stop walking. "I know what happened. I asked Herschel what he and Lori were talkin' about earlier. The same thing that caused your first attack and it's the same thing they started talkin' about back there". I hold my hand up but he doesn't stop. "You've had two panic attack and nearly just had your third but you used anger to squash it down."
"Daryl I." I don't know what to say. He's right. Every time there's talk about being infected my mind goes to our baby and, oh god. My heart starts pounding as my hands start to sweat.
"Hey, hey" He drops his crossbow to the floor and puts his hands on either side of my neck, forcing me to keep looking at him. "Deep breaths. That's it. I'm sorry, we won't talk about it anymore. I'll make sure no one talks about it".
"Thank you". I'm fully aware not talking about it is not the solution to the problem but what else are we supposed to do. No one here is even slightly qualified to help me, we could make it worse and worse is not what I need, not while this close to giving birth. If it's all connected to the baby, maybe it'll go away once I've had it.
While the Sheriff took Glenn and Daryl back to the cafeteria that the prisoners were locked in Carol and I load up a bag full for each of the men. Some water each, some food. We can only spare a couple of torches but two should be enough. Each one gets a knife stuffed at the bottom of their bag which they can get out once they're out of the prison. We have some small first aid kits we found back at that warehouse which we also give them. It's enough to help them survive at least a couple of days but from then on they've got learn to survive themselves.
Merle has tried giving the guys pointers on how to kill Walkers, info about bites and anything else he can think of that might help them. I think he'll struggle to make Tomas listen but the others should take in the information and be thankful for it.
I look back towards the door to our cells but I can't hear anything coming from inside. "How's T-Dog doing?"
Carol stops packing the bag. "Last I time I went in there Herschel said that the bleeding was under control and that he still had no fever, but he's still out with a slow pulse."
"So cutting his leg off above the bite worked?"
"Only because of how quick Rick did it, I think if they'd brought T back before doing it, it would have been too late".
I make sure no one else can hear me before leaning closer to Carol. "I don't think what T-Dogs going to have to deal with is going to be any better than dying." It sounds harsh, at least he's alive right. "He's gonna be vulnerable, slow, weak. Someone could die trying to protect him".
"If this place works out, we might not have to worry about any of that. He could stay here where it's safe".
Like people thought the farm was safe.
Carol and I hand the bags over to the one's we now know are Oscar and Big Tiny. Some nicknames people get given in prison can be pretty good, extremely ironic.
Oscar thanks the two of us before they hand the bags to the others.
"You each have a hunting knife in the bottom of your bags", Carol reveals to them.
Merle clicks the safety off his gun when Glenn finally appears with some more melee weapons for them. A crowbar, an axe, a bat that was a spare in case mine ever broke. But mines going strong so I'm happy to give the spare away. Alex seems pretty happy with his broken pipe and so does Big Tiny. Thankfully Oscar takes the axe as I wouldn't trust Tomas with it.
"Ya have about five hours until it's gets dark". Daryl warns them. "Use the time wisely. Find a car or at least find somewhere to hunker down for the evenin'. Either a buildin' or a wide open field. You'll see anythin' that comes."
None of them say anything, I think they're too scared and confused about everything to know what to say. Instead Glenn goes and opens the front gate as Daryl gives the can of gas over.
We wait, watching until they disappear down the road.
Glenn leans a little closer. "You think they'll make it?"
I shrug but I'm not the only one who heard him. "Not all of them". Daryl then makes sure the gate is locked and holding my hand he leads us back up to the prison.