Daryl and Glenn brought back a new person today, a man who was travelling alone on foot. His name was Bob, and he said he used to be a medic in the army. We gave him a cell in D Block, which he was very grateful for.
When we got him settled in, we were called to a council meeting at the end of the day. Hershel said it was necessary with the things going on around here, but I was less than convinced. The meetings were boring most of the time anyway, but I had to be there, or there would be no point in being on the council.
If I wanted to remain in a position of power—which I'm not sure I did—then I had to go to the meetings. In all reality, leading was hard and with this many people on the council I never really did anything outside of building and runs.
"The Big Spot is still there, too" Daryl continued, explaining what happened to him and Glenn on the run. "We checked it out while we were out there. Circled the place to find another way in, but there isn't."
"What's the Big Spot?" I frowned.
Part of me stopped getting embarrassed by questions like that. I had heard him call something the Big Spot before, but I was busy when he last had this conversation and didn't pick up on what he meant. Sure, it was someplace he imagined to have a lot of supplies, but how could he know that if he couldn't check the place out beforehand? Either way, he seemed excited about it.
"Huge grocery store," Daryl answered. "We found it before, I was telling Michonne about it before she left."
"Completely untouched," Glenn added.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"Walkers outside are fenced in," Daryl took over. "No one's getting inside while they're there."
"Why is there a fence around a shop?"
"Army went in there and put up a base," Daryl answered. "All tents outside of the store."
"A grocery store would be a good hit for us," Hershel agreed. "We could always do with the extra boost until we get enough food from the farm."
Hershel talking about the farm reminded me of Rick, and how long it had been since he came to a meeting. I missed him being here. He was meant to be taking a break, which I understood, but I didn't think he was stepping down completely when he brought up the idea of farming for the prison.
I was still really worried about him. He never took his gun with him outside the prison anymore, which he did often to check the snares. I even wished he'd carry around the prison because as long as it had been since we saw the Governor, he could show up. I didn't think he would, but I didn't want Rick to be in any danger in the field. He wouldn't listen to me when I brought it up, though. It became a topic that he avoided with me, and I think everyone else who tried to get him to carry it again.
"Yeah, but how the hell are we supposed to get inside with walkers fenced in?" Sasha asked, her face scrunching in confusion.
"Well, I'm thinking we head out there in a few days, cut a hole in the fence and blast some music a mile away to draw 'em out," Daryl said. "Got that boombox we can use."
"We're never going to keep a boombox on that long," I said. "We'd have to keep going down there and changing the batteries, which won't work because it'll be surrounded by walkers."
"Well, normally yeah," Daryl nodded in agreement. "But we do know a mechanic that can re-hook a boombox to run on car batteries."
"Wonder who that could be," I mumbled sarcastically.
"So you'll do it?" Sasha asked.
I thought for a second, wondering how you even connect a boombox to car batteries. "Can I get a couple of days to find spare car batteries and learn how to make a boombox run on them? This isn't just something I know how to do. I need a chance to look at it."
"Take all the time ya need," Daryl said, leaning back on his chair. "No one's gettin' into that place with all 'em walkers there."
"Did we get any car batteries from that garage that Zach was at?" Sasha asked.
"No, but I might have some spares lying around," I said. "I looted the Governor's trucks a few days after we brought everyone here. Still have a lot of things from that."
"If you don't have any, we'll drive out to the nearest cars," Glenn said.
I sighed.
"While I'm doing that, we need more people on the fences," I said. "I can't be everywhere at once when I'm trying to work out how to do this. Not anymore. And we need to take care of the walkers before they become a problem. If it gets as bad as last month, they could come down, and I don't have the time to build supports for the fences yet."
"We can't go after this spot until this place is in a better position," Glenn agreed.
"We'll rework the jobs, figure something out," Hershel said. "But this store is something that we can't pass up."
It would be a good find if there were as many supplies in there as Daryl believed there were. I did keep my hopes down enough, though. If the military was there and now they were gone, replaced by walkers, that either means that the army was overrun or they fled and walkers took over. If they fled then they would've taken some of the supplies.
"What's been goin' on with the fences?" Daryl asked after a moment.
I shook my head. "I don't know, they just keep grouping up. It's weird."
"Walkers all follow each other," Glenn said simply.
"Nah, this is different," Sasha agreed with me. "I mean, yeah, when you get so many out there, where else do they have to go? They group around each other in the same way herds work, but we can't just have herds sitting on our fences."
"I don't even mean them being on the fences," I shook my head. "That's not weird. They can see us working outside so they come to the fences, fine. But the fact that so many walkers are finding this place to begin with is weird. It's like they're being drawn here."
"Maybe they can smell the pigs?" Daryl suggested.
"Maybe," I shrugged. "It's just strange."
After the meeting was over, I decided I needed to make a start on rigging that boombox. I headed out to the makeshift work area and grabbed a small toolbox with most things I thought I'd need for a job like this. I grabbed the two car batteries, bringing everything into the cell block and leaving them on a table.
Then I went back to get the boombox in my workshop area. I was going to scrap it for parts before Daryl told me we might need it for something, and it lived as untouched junk in my makeshift garage ever since.
After looking at it for a second, I knew I needed to use some spare wires because nothing was as easy as plugging it into the battery pack. I assumed it was the same thing as attaching a car radio to a battery, but they aren't the same thing.
So I sat down for a while with the back of the radio open looking at the battery terminal and then the two car batteries to find out how to get them working.
"Still working?" Rick asked, sitting down at the table where I placed all my tools and parts. He pushed some aside before placing his bowl down amongst the mess. "I don't think it's the best idea to play music around here with all the walkers."
"Very funny," I mumbled. "Daryl wants it to lure walkers away from a shop. Although, something like this might help when I need to fix the fences."
After a little while of staring at the radio and batteries in complete and utter confusion, Sasha sat down with Tyreese, Karen and Glenn. They took the table behind Rick, deciding not to mess with the clutter I'd left on the table.
"Working on that already?" Glenn asked. "You know Daryl said it can be done whenever, because no one can get into the big spot."
"Well, I don't know how to do it, per se," I reached for a knife to strip some wires. "I imagine it's something like connecting a car radio to the battery, but I didn't do so many electronic fixes in my dad's garage, so they're a little harder to work out. I've been practising on the cars outside, you know, rewiring the horn to the brakes or whatever—"
"What?" Sasha interrupted me.
"—A prank that I promptly fixed because as funny as it would have been for the horn to sound every time someone pressed the brakes, it isn't practical," I finished, ignoring Sasha who was now staring at me with her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. I started twisting the red and yellow wire together, knowing that they'd typically need to connect those to the positive terminal.
"Sometimes I wonder how you're in a position of power," she said after a moment.
"I'm smart," was my explanation for getting leadership amongst the group. "Besides, I fixed it. I'd never let anyone drive around like that."
"I didn't even know you could do something like that," Tyreese commented, starting to eat his food.
"Is that why that horn went off the other day?" Karen asked.
"I was testing it," I said in a duh tone. "It was only for a second and I muffled it as much as I could to not lure attention, but I can't learn electronics if I don't know whether something is working. Not only that, but I came down and helped on the fences after that to deal with any consequences of walkers hearing me."
Karen glanced at Tyreese, who nodded. "She did."
"See," I said, holding a hand up to him.
"Well, that makes it all better," Sasha said.
"I could've just let you drive in it," I reminded her. "Unfortunately, I'm not evil, I'm smart."
Rick chuckled to himself, shaking his head.
"Anyway, the sooner I work it out the sooner I can get to work on the fences," I said, finally answering Glenn's question as to why I had to tackle this now. "Whether I kill the walkers or try to support the fences, they need my help out there. I can't help them if I'm in here trying to find the negative terminal of a boombox."
"I see," Glenn nodded.
After connecting the right wires to the correct terminals of the boombox, I turned it around to face me. "Okay, I think this should be it."
I flipped the switch on the boombox. Silence. Nothing happened, and the boombox sat there quietly. I checked the drives, and there was a disk that should have been playing music as it turned on, but nothing happened.
"It isn't working," I said after a moment.
"Do you know why?" Glenn asked.
I shook my head, a frown on my face as I switched the wires over from one car battery, to the second one. I tried the boombox again which suddenly started blasting music around the prison, which startled me and I shot to turn it off while covering one ear with my hand.
"Dead battery?" Rick asked, his face still scrunched up after having music blaring in his ears.
"I'm not surprised, they've been sitting around for months," I said. I picked up the dead one and sighed. "Now I'm going to have to find a way to charge this one."
"Something you can do tomorrow." I was shocked to hear Maggie's voice as she walked past, grabbing the battery from my hand and placing it down on the table. "Have you eaten anything yet?"
"No," I mumbled. "I was busy."
"Too busy," she told me. "Go get something to eat."
I huffed. "Fine."
I was up early the next morning, unfortunately, and headed out to my makeshift workshop area to get a start on charging the car battery. I didn't want to use one in the cars and have this one get unreliable, because the cars running was more important than trying to keep the boombox on. Once the walkers got out of the store, there would be nothing that could lure them back unless we started shooting.
Rick and Carl were heading out of the front door when I made it into the common room, ready to get back to work on the farm. They were often out early, which made me glad that I didn't have the time to help out on the farm. I was sure Rick would be more than happy to get me up at God knows what time to put me to work.
After grabbing my tools and supplies off the table, I headed outside. The sun was already starting to come up, already blaring down and making it very uncomfortable for me to be outside, but aside from driving the cars through the prison walls, there was nothing else I could do. Builder/mechanic was more of an outside job than I initially realised.
I lined up two cars (one with the same battery voltage as the one I needed to charge) and replaced the other's battery so the car could act as a host, a running engine would stop it from draining. I missed having a car battery charger already.
When I hooked everything up and started the cars, I sat down on one of the boxes to wait. They would need to be hooked up for at least fifteen minutes, maybe more; idling the cars would be a small waste of petrol, but revving the cars would only draw more walkers to the fences. Seeing as I couldn't help the cull crew until I was finished with this, or come up with a plan to make the fences stronger, then luring more of them in seemed like a bad idea.
There was talking across the courtyard, and I glanced up to see who was there. Beth was walking toward the field, holding Judith in her arms. Someone called her name, and she stopped, which was when Zach walked out past the wall of the prison.
He kissed her, which was when I decided to look away. It made me feel kind of awkward, for no reason, and I was sure they wanted some kind of privacy without the uncomfortable teenager creepily watching them.
When I looked back, Beth was walking away and Zach gave them a big wave as she took Judith down to the field to see her dad and brother. It was something that Beth did often because they spent so much time working away from her.
As Zach turned, he stopped when he spotted me. I just gave him a nod and looked at the wall ahead, kicking my feet back and forth as I waited for the batteries to charge.
"Hey," he said, walking over. "Didn't see you here."
"Yeah well, I . . . did." I gestured to where he was just with Beth. It was weird seeing them around like a couple in High School, which reminded me that I was just an awkward kid in High School (for some reason Maggie was upset that I missed out on this).
Zach rubbed the back of his neck, his shoulders shrugged. "Yeah, sorry about that."
"No, it's fine," I waved him off. "I suppose some people have to be in happy relationships."
"Well, what about you?" His face brightened up for some reason, and he asked, "Anything changed on the Isaac front?"
I raised a brow, looking over at him. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, well Beth just said something and he—" Zach stopped himself, shaking his head quickly. "Nothing, nothing. What are you doing here?"
I was hesitant to answer for a second because he was going to say something about Isaac that didn't involve what Beth told him. Of course, Beth had told him about my crush on Isaac, I expected no less, but it didn't occur to me that Isaac might talk about anything with Zach.
What did he even mean? Did Isaac like me too? Zach was certain that something could have changed between the two of us, but no one else. There were other people closer to my age around the prison, more boys in D Block that stayed with their families. Isaac rarely ever seemed interested in me, and I imagined that the only reason we even spoke so much was because of the convenience of living in the same block.
It was easier just to let what he said slip and explain my work. "Well, I was making the boombox work on two car batteries, which would've worked a hundred percent if the second battery was, you know, charged."
"Well, they do have to be charged," Zach grinned and leaned back against the box I was sitting on.
I continued, ignoring his blatant attempt to make small talk instead of hearing my problem. "So, when they didn't work, I knew that they had to be charged. Anyway, I don't have a charger for car batteries, a huge oversight in my opinion but never something I needed because I can just use other cars to jumpstart any batteries that don't work."
"Okay," he nodded.
"So, I had to detach the boombox and then take one out of the car that had a working battery, so I could replace it with the one that needs to be charged, so I can jumpstart the car with the broken battery and make it charged again so we can put it in a field and lure walkers away from a store—"
"Your job is a lot more stressful than mine," he said, interrupting my rambling.
"The time taken on this task would've been cut in half if I'd just assumed that the batteries weren't charged and jumpstarted them anyway," I shrugged. "Anyway, now I'm just waiting for the battery to charge but letting the cars sit here and run for a little while. It needs enough to last a couple of days so the walkers stay away from the shop."
Zach looked at the cars, before nodding, seemingly understanding. Then his gaze moved down the field, where Beth and Carl were talking on the field. My gaze went to the fences behind, the cull crew trying to stop the fence walkers from becoming a small hoard.
"Doesn't seem like you're gonna have a lot of people on the run if the fences are piled up," Zach said. "I was thinking about going down there today to give the cull crew a hand."
"Yeah, I will too when I get these hooked up," I said. "Daryl said we won't go to the Big Spot until things are in a better position around here."
Isaac had already offered, which no one seemed to be too thrilled about. I knew it was because of his age, they hated bringing younger people out because they wanted them to be safer at home, but if no one else could help then Isaac and Zach were the next two in line. Isaac offered because he knew everything we needed to grab anyway, which meant he could be a little more help outside the walls.
"I could help," Zach said. "You know, if you don't end up having enough people."
I shrugged. "Maybe, you'd have to talk to Hershel about it."
"Why not you?"
"What?"
"You're on the council too," Zach reminded me. "You're in charge of this stuff, too."
"Yeah, I . . ." I shook my head. "I don't like being in charge of people leaving the prison."
Zach nodded. "I get it. I don't think I'd like having that kind of responsibility either. And it seems like you got a lot going on here anyway."
"Yeah," I mumbled. "In all honesty, I'm thinking about stepping back from the council. It wouldn't change that much for me anyway."
"No?"
"Nah," I shook my head. "It was made so the job didn't fall to one person. We had a lot of trouble at one point and it came down to the pressure being dumped on one person. The only reason I'm even on the council now is because I took over when the job became too much."
"Well, stuff like this is probably slow compared to that," Zach said. "Whatever it was."
"It doesn't matter, people die no matter what," I shrugged. "War, or not."
"A war, huh?"
"I don't want to get too far into it," I shook my head. "I don't—I don't like talking about it."
Zach nodded. "I've got stories like that, too."
"Sorry," I said.
"Hey, it's alright," he shrugged. "We've all been through hell to get here. It's just good to have a place that works, with a bunch of people who actually care about each other. It may not last, not many places do, but until then everyone does their best here. It's all you can ask for at this point."
I nodded, looking up at the people who were in and out of the field on the cull crew. They were the ones who needed us to do our part and keep everything in line. They just wanted a safe place to live, shelter, food, water, something we were able to give them.
Part of me forgot that sometimes.
"You need help hooking the batteries back up?" Zach asked, glancing back at the cars.
I raised an eyebrow. "You know how?"
"I was thinking maybe you could show me and I'll be able to help out next time," he said. "Take a little off your hands next time something like this comes around."
I stood up and walked to the cars, turned them off and disconnected the battery. Zach followed me, and I held the once-dead battery out to him. "I have to put the old battery back in here, take that to the boombox and hook it up. Red and yellow wires are positive, black is negative."
"How do I know which end is which?"
"The little plus and minus symbols should help you out," I said with a grin.
"Right," he nodded, walking away.
When I was done with the car, Zach seemed to be done with the boombox.
"Is that right?" He asked, and I gave a nod. "Okay, what now?"
"Turn it on, test it." As he took a step to the boombox, I yelled out quickly to stop him. "Wait! Turn the volume down first."
"Got it," he nodded.
He knelt by the boombox on the ground, barely shaded by the wooden box I hid it behind so the sun didn't fry up the wires. He spun the volume knob back and then pressed the switch on top, and the radio started playing the music again.
"Hey, look at that," he smiled.
"Well done," I said. "You just hooked up your first radio to a car battery, in a sense. You've come a long way from pouring the wrong oil into a car."
"I never actually did that," he said. "You stopped me before I could."
"Fair enough."
Zach took a step forward, and turned the radio off, stopping whatever random tune was playing that I didn't recognise. "Okay, well I'm going to talk to some of the other members of the council about that run. If they pull people back then I'll take over, give you guys less work."
"Sure, I'll see you," I said.
I took a step out into the courtyard, watching as Zach made his way back towards the prison. I think Sasha and Hershel were still inside, that he could talk to.
"Daryl!" I called him over.
He stopped whatever conversation he was in, saying a quick goodbye to David, who made his way down towards the fence as Daryl walked over to me. I took a step back down the side of the prison, waving my hand so Daryl could follow me.
"I did it," I said, gesturing to the boombox on the ground.
He raised a brow. "Shit, really?"
"Yeah," I nodded.
"I'll load it into one of the cars and let the others know," Daryl said. "We can put it out there to get the walkers out, but these fences are still in a pretty bad shape."
"Yeah, I know," I cringed. "I don't know a better way to keep them up. We can stick logs against the fence but it's still going to bend under enough weight. And after a while, the logs will rot. I mean, something like that can take years depending on the thickness, but it isn't permanent."
"Yeah," Daryl agreed. "I thought about making the walls thicker, like the ones at Woodbury, but then we won't be able to kill the ones in the herd outside."
"And something like that would take months," I agreed. "The walkers wouldn't see us anymore, though, so they might stop coming here."
"We'll figure out something more permanent," Daryl said. "But for now, we're stuck with the fence. David was just telling me how bad it's been for them."
"I could take a night shift," I suggested. "Take out what I can."
"Nah, we'll need you to come out with us to the Big Spot and set up that radio tomorrow. I want you there in case it disconnects or something," Daryl said. "Besides, the walkers should get bored with less of us out here at night."
I nodded, mumbling, "Yeah, okay."
It was probably for the best.
We drove out and set up the boombox two days ago. Since then, me and other members of the council had been working the fences, trying to get this place in a better position so we could bring members of the cull crew on the run. I had seen the store, and if the place was fully stocked, we would need a lot of people to come with us to make it one trip.
Daryl couldn't help us though, because he left for a hunting trip that morning and managed to bring back a deer for everyone at the prison. Carol wasn't very happy, because last I heard from her, she was one of the people that had to prepare it to eat. I luckily got out of jobs like that by swamping myself with very difficult and intensive labour.
Winning.
While the others worked on killing the walkers, me and Glenn had been dragging spare lumber we had from other jobs to lean them up near the poles of the fences and tying them there so they stayed propped up. When I had more time we needed to get to work in the middle because, in the hot wire, the fences would bend inwards.
I had finished my day at about the same time as Rick because I couldn't work on the fences into the night with the big run the next day. We went in at the same time to grab our food and sat down at a table with Carl.
"Anything exciting happen today?" I asked as I finished my food, not expecting much.
"Dad tripped in the pig pen," Carl chuckled.
Rick shot him a look, but Carl kept laughing because we knew it wasn't serious. I grinned at him, and said, "I was wondering about that stain."
"Yeah, yeah," Rick rolled his eyes.
After a few more minutes of joking about that, Carl stood up. "I'm going to head to bed."
"And actually get some sleep," Rick reminded him.
Carl rolled his eyes, walking away. "Yeah, yeah."
As he left, I stood up, taking mine and Rick's plates across the room to the plastic washing-up bowl so someone could do them the next day.
When I sat down he was still there.
"Are you going to come with us?" I asked and clarified. "On the run tomorrow?"
Rick shook his head. "No, no. I have to check the snares tomorrow. We don't want to lose anything to the walkers."
Sudden disappointment struck my chest, but I nodded. "Yeah, okay," and then I remembered to ask, "You're taking your gun, though. Right?"
"Ace, if I get into trouble out there, I don't know what good six bullets will do," he said softly.
"Then take mine," I said. "Fifteen bullets is even better."
"You'll need it," he shook his head. "I'll be okay, just worry about your run. And maybe take a couple of days off after that, spend some time with Beth or Zach or Isaac. You've been working yourself hard lately."
"I have to keep working after the run," I told him. "We need to make the fences stronger."
Rick gave a nod. "Just be sure to take some time for yourself."
"I will." At some point. I decided to change the subject. "How's Carl been?"
"He's been better I think," Rick nodded. "I know he doesn't like working on the farm, though. He's been asking to help out on the fences. I just want him to slow it down a little, and take some time to be a kid. Like you."
"Yeah, I get it," I nodded. "I can try and spend some more time with him after the run. I've been meaning to, but things just keep getting in the way."
"Maybe he'd like that more," Rick agreed. "I know Patrick is closer in age, but they're different. And the other kids are younger and go to storytime with Carol, and he just isn't interested in any of that." Rick looked up, gave me a grin and said, "as much as I hate it, he's more like you."
"Intelligent and hardworking?" I smiled back. "Just the greatest human being?"
Rick rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he smiled. "Yeah, you both are."
I nodded, still smiling. "I'll talk to him."
When Rick had left to go to bed, I followed him and stopped at Carl's cell to see if he was awake. The blanket was pulled up all the way over his head, and there was a big lump in the duvet where a light was shining out from underneath.
"What are you still doing awake?" I asked into Carl's cell, to which he lifted his head above the blanket and pointed a torch at me.
"How did you know?"
"Blankets have holes in them and light passes through?" was my very boring excuse.
"Dad wants me up early but I wanted to finish this comic before I went to bed," he said.
"What one?" I asked. He held it up to me, showing a random Marvel comic that Michonne found him on one of her runs. "Oh, nice."
He nodded and pointed the torch back down at the comic.
"Do you want to play a game or something soon?" I asked, twisting my foot against the ground, anxious over what his answer would be.
Carl raised a brow. "Like what?"
"We grabbed some of those board games didn't we?"
"Yeah, we can play something," he smiled.
"Cool, because I've been feeling kind of guilty for not spending as much time with you anymore," I said, now actually feeling guilty because I brought it up. Me and Carl used to do things all the time before Winter, and then things just started happening and we never had time to do anything fun.
"I don't blame you for that," Carl said. "You do a lot for this place."
"I know, but people think I do too much and now that I think about it, maybe I do," I said. "I just want to be able to play games and stuff with you again. Like we used to."
"Yeah, well, it doesn't matter, anyway," Carl shrugged. "I'll beat you. You haven't played a game in so long that you're probably rusty."
"Oh, now you're on, wise guy," I pointed at him through the door.
Carl laughed, which made me smile. I hadn't seen him that happy in a little while, and I was glad that he wasn't upset with me for not spending as much time with him as I used to.
I pushed myself away from his door frame and waved. "Night, Carl."
"Goodnight," he smiled.
And I turned to walk to my cell.
