"You look awful."
"Thanks, pretty lady." I replied and it utterly confused Andrea before she realised that maybe telling someone you guessed hadn't slept well looked terrible was not going to get a friendly response. And then she got annoyed about the implication about her own appearance.
"Did you sleep at all last night?" Dale stepped in and he had clearly slept like a log.
"Night? No. Morning… Maybe." I slapped my face which had no effect other than to tell me I might have to consider that it was time to start shaving.
Breakfast was a half cup each of last night's stew. Saving some for the morning had been a good idea although it wasn't the best thing to eat cold. It took some effort to get down despite hunger. But the anticipation of what was to come made it possible.
Our arsenal was limited and the prison so far had yielded just a few handguns and non-lethal weaponry. Impressive as the batons looked; they were designed not to shatter bones which made them useless against walker skulls. Daryl was not impressed by the riot armour, or rather, its state after being worn by dead men for several months. It was a bit… Juicy. The gloves and helmets certainly. The body armour was in better condition and Andrea, Glenn, Maggie and Theodore put it on to look almost intimidating. The rest of their stained clothes ruined the look although it gave Theodore a look reminiscent of a football player.
"Can we help you?" Rick asked me.
"You're going to need your hands free. So I'll hang back and point a flashlight over your head."
"We need everyone we can get." Andrea spoke before he could say no.
"Unless you want to tape a light to my head." Theodore still had the riot shield which with his fireiron meant he couldn't light his own path. Neither could Andrea who had another shield.
Rick didn't like it but he conceded. He needed every body he could get and without me his choice was Dale or Hershel; so it was either the young or the old. He conceded to the young.
Daryl did tape a flashlight to his crossbow and I thought it was half-sensible. Half because it acted like a tac-light for the weapon and also because it was a big, cumbersome weapon. It was silent and excellent in the open but I didn't think it would be all that useful in the closed spaces of the confines of the prison. But I wasn't dumb enough to say that to Daryl. The rank armour had put him in a bad mood already.
I had no real business going with them. No one would have batted an eyelid if I had stayed with the old men, the children and the others who weren't considered fighters. But I needed to keep busy. I had spent my life taking care of myself and I wasn't about to let others take care of me. I had to always be useful. Even if it was just babysitting, I made a contribution. Glenn had asked if I was cool with that, referring mostly to watching Carl and Sophia but also Beth and Lori. I had asked if he wanted the job. He was happy I was happy.
Although he wasn't so happy about this. "You're seriously volunteering for this?"
"It's creeping about in the dark trying not to be caught."
He took a moment to think about it and then nodded meekly.
The first stretch of the inner part of the cell block had to be clear because our noise the previous day and night hadn't drawn any walkers to the gate, but Rick wasn't taking any chances. We moved slowly and quietly and checked every corner before we reached another gate that meant we were really in it. We passed one small window and then we were in the dark. The white light of the prison flashlights seemed to actually make it worse because they really emphasised how grey and bleak the place was. We passed a leak in the ceiling and the green slime that had formed from the water was the only hint of colour.
No one spoke. Not even a whisper. We just took in the sights which here meant more debris from the riot and the all too familiar sight of desiccated bodies that had been stripped to the bones that bore teeth marks; human and rodent. What the walkers hadn't consumed, the rats had evidently finished off. Rick's light illuminated an untouched body that looked like it was starting to mummify. There was a hole in its forehead.
The eaten bodies were tough to identify. Walkers had no problem eating clothing to get to flesh and a pack of them ripping into someone with their hands and teeth stripped them virtually naked as they were consumed. A few shreds of greyish-green meant a guard but blue was an inmate. It was hard to establish a pattern.
I tried to imagine what had happened here. A normal riot with inmates going for guards and others inmates they held grudges against, only the downed inmates would have gotten up again and been loose amongst the other inmates. Meanwhile a shanked guard would have been recovered and evacuated to the infirmary and after bleeding out, they would have been loose amongst medical personnel. A few bites here and there and then there would have been no more doctors here. No doctors, walkers attacking all over the prison and the guards not knowing what they were facing. It would have been a bloodbath.
Glenn marked the way back with spray paint. We had done this before in dark buildings and it was easier than laying a rope or cable. If you couldn't see the arrows in the dark, you could just sniff for the fresh paint. There were more bodies, some eaten, some whole. I put my crowbar into both. The others thought I was mad when I did this and all I had to do when they started to voice their complaint about it being creepy was to raise my left hand. The hand holding a flashlight with just two fingers.
The floors made every step echo which was unnerving but also useful. When we stood still and listened, we didn't hear any other echoing footsteps. The dead weren't stealthy unless they had a small build and were barefoot and even then the snarling would give them away. But there was no snarling. No movement except for dripping water. The only real noise was the sound of Glenn's spray can and the heavy breathing that came from being in a place like this.
"I don't like this." Andrea spoke the first word louder than she intended and so whispered the rest.
"Who does?" Daryl replied and he had that twitchy stance he got when he was amped up.
"I don't think we should go any further."
"I agree." Theodore wasn't twitchy; he was too big for that. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Rick was not impressed with the committee but the dark and quiet had him every bit as anxious as the rest of us. He wasn't stupid; this place was not empty and going deeper into the maze would only get us killed. "Back up. Back to the cells and then make some noise."
Going backward was actually worse than going forward because now we had to check both ways. No one was confident the way back would be as empty as it had been when we had passed through. And yet, it was. That didn't reassure however because it only meant more of the enduring quiet.
The cell doors opened into the corridor, so if we were pushed back the walkers would close the doors on us and their attempts to attack would only secure the cells more. That was comforting. Theodore clanging his fireiron on one of those cell doors was not. The clash of metal on metal seemed to electrify the air and there was already enough tension in it.
And Theodore managed to make it worse. "For what we are about to receive."
Outside it had been difficult to figure out how the inmates had died but the ones in here had more obvious bite marks, lots of them, as well as evidence of being shanked. The blue jumpsuits had great black stains in their middles and a riot guard still had a sharpened toothbrush sticking out of his neck. Guessing by the stains under the visor; he had choked to death on his own blood.
Maggie put her knife up under his jaw.
Andrea and Theodore formed a bulwark in the middle of the corridor with their shields while the others braced the cell doors, and stabbed and hacked through the bars for several frantic seconds before the walkers pushed hard and I was shunted backward, pushed into a cell and then the door slammed shut and we were blinded by the flashlights on the other side. The walkers' arms reached through the bars and we instinctively cringed back but they were keeping the door closed with their own efforts.
I was in the cell with Andrea and Glenn. Maggie was on the other side; I could hear her calling to him. They shrieked each other's' names back and forth and then Rick hollered for everyone to shut up. We could barely hear him over all the snarling.
"Still happy you volunteered for this?" Glenn asked.
I answered by sinking my crowbar into a skull and snatching my arm back before it could be grabbed. "No place else I'd rather be." I sang.
They both gave me alarmed looks but Glenn prudently did the same with his length of pipe. Andrea's shield was useless in here so she put it aside and tried to use her chisel but it didn't have the reach. She glared at me as I offered her my flashlight but she took it and held it so Glenn and I could do what we could. With the door held shut by our own attackers, we could take our time and be careful. Pick our targets. We had been in this situation before and more than once.
"I think it's working!" Glenn had infectious enthusiasm. I didn't know what it was. Perhaps it was that he managed to hold onto optimism even in the worst situations and if we all fell down, he was the first to pick himself up. The night after the farm had fallen had been his lowest point and he had never lost the faith the same way since.
"You mean not dying?" Andrea asked.
"Well… Yeah…" Glenn said and lunged again with the pipe.
I gave the crowbar to Andrea so she could take a turn as the lack of food caught up with me, not to mention the lack of sleep. She always had a frenzied reserve of energy that I didn't like to think about. I knew where that energy came from.
"How y'all doing?" Rick called out and I bit off a very sarcastic response. Theodore had no such qualms.
"Living the dream!"
It took perhaps twenty minutes before the corridor cleared so that the flashlights shone through clear bars. Getting out proved difficult with all the bodies pilled against the door. The three of us had to push hard to get it open just a crack, enough for me to slip out and clear the way for them.
This was going to take a long time to clear up.
"Alright…" Rick said, nodding in that way of his. "That worked." He nodded a final time and took a deep breath. "Let's push on."
Glenn and Maggie's faces said they wanted to take a breather. Theodore actually mouthed 'For real?' Andrea and Daryl were ready for anything.
"Maybe we should… Clear the path." I suggested.
"He's right." Andrea said. "I don't want to have climb over this if we have to run back."
The cells became charnel houses as we dragged them in, taking it in turns to keep watch in case more of them showed up. But everyone felt much safer and relaxed to put those corpses away and close the doors on them.
"Maybe we should go back." Glenn suggested. "Let the others know we're okay."
"Not empty-handed." Rick said and someone's stomach growled in the dark. It might have been funny in different circumstances.
We pushed on and there were more eaten bodies and more downed walkers. Once upon a time this had been enough to render me catatonic. Now I didn't bat an eyelid as Daryl took down a straggler with his knife. This place was nightmarish by the standards of the old world, even before it had gone dark and filled with walking corpses, but now it was only a little worse than everywhere else. Without power, every big building was a dark maze that promised horrors.
"Wait." I stopped Glenn in his tracks and shone the light down on a body that was sat slumped against the wall. He had seen it, but he hadn't 'seen' it. He had been about to step over it. They all paused and watched as I smashed the crowbar down on its skull; and the dormant walker jerked convulsively as its skull collapsed.
"How did you know?" Glenn asked, swallowing a lump.
"I didn't." I said. "But better safe than sorry." I gave him one of my three-fingered salutes. I was giving a lot of them at the moment.
Something else Glenn was very good at it was looked freaked. His eyes got very wide. Daryl grunted and the others looked somewhat annoyed by the reminder that death lurked everywhere. Except for Maggie. She nodded gratefully, her green eyes bright in the dark, and touched my arm.
There were a couple more stragglers that Daryl and Theodore dispatched and we could hear more somewhere, doubtless riled up by the noise we had made but lost in the echoing corridors. There was another gate and a brief debate ensued about whether to lock it. For the moment as we didn't know the layout of the place, locking doors behind us would only impede us.
We continued creeping on until we reached a pair of very nondescript steel doors that had been secured with a pair of handcuffs of all things.
"You want me to cut these?" Theodore asked, he had brought the bolt cutters for just such obstacles. "Or do you think this was locked for a reason?"
"Let me." I said and slipped forward. "If we open Pandora's Box, we can close it again." I pulled out my picks.
"Pandora's Box?" Andrea asked sceptically.
"I read." I replied, although I hadn't exactly had access to any good books these past few months. We had had other priorities than reading material. And I only knew about Pandora from a children's book about Greek myths. "These are easy." I remarked.
"Standard issue." Rick replied. "One kind of cuff for one kind of key."
"And, open." There was a satisfying click as they unlocked.
"It never stops being weird seeing you do that." Andrea remarked. "I feel like an accessory."
This actually made Rick chuckle which was rare these days. It was a brief moment and then Theodore carefully pried the door open. The light that came out was blinding after the stygian corridors and we lingered outside to let our eyes adjust and I became aware of a room with heavily barred windows, a big pile of trash in one corner and dining tables.
A canteen.
We stepped in and Theodore put his fireiron through the door handles to secure the room. No one said anything as they basked in the light, except for me and Daryl who were used to the dark and squalor. He gestured at the same thing that had caught my attention; a line with clothes hanging off it.
There was a noise to our left and Daryl brought the crossbow up and shone its light into the face of five blue-clad figures who blinked as the beam hit them. Walkers didn't blink.
"Holy shit…" One of them said.
"Who the hell are you?" Daryl advanced a couple of paces with his crossbow while everyone else took in the shock of seeing anyone alive in here.
"Who the hell are you?" One of them replied and it was a fair response.
"Why don't you come on out of there? Slow and steady." Daryl was on edge and Rick had that familiar cop stance of not looking like he was ready to go for his gun, but being ready to.
The five men were visibly filthy and bore the familiar signs of DIY hairdressing. The Latino who had the top of his jumpsuit tied around his waist had uneven hair and his moustache and goatee was longer on one side than the other. It was nothing compared to the moustache of the lone white guy who looked like he had stepped out of the Civil War. Of the three black men, one was bigger than Theodore and had cut the sleeves off his suit to make his bulging muscles more prominent. It looked like he had passed the time in here, during his sentence and now the apocalypse, keeping those muscles big. He clutched a broom handle as a weapon but he held it defensively, expecting to be attacked rather than to attack. The other two black men were harder to pin down. The taller one had recently shaved his head and face leaving a shadow on his head and a thin beard. The other shorter one had likely done the same a few weeks ago, leaving him with a small fuzz on his head and a neckbeard.
The Latino had everyone's attention. He had .38 snub stashed in the knot around his waist.
"Who the hell are you people?" He asked again and obviously we were the first people he had seen in months. We were not a reassuring group. As he took in Daryl pointing the crossbow at him, he also noted those in prison riot armour and Rick's police gun belt.
"Don't look like no rescue team." Civil War guy said. He had his arms folded and he looked tired more than anything else.
"If a rescue team is what you're waiting for; don't." Rick advised. "Otherwise you gonna be waiting longer than you already have."
"You guys been in here this whole time?" Glenn asked, looking less freaked and more expectant of trouble. Especially as five convicts kept flicking their eyes at his girlfriend. Andrea and Maggie were like mirages to them.
"It was the end of summer when we saw those doors close." Civil War guy answered. "By my calculations-"
"Hey, shut up!" Latino snapped and I saw the way it made the Big Guy and Civil War Guy flinch. "What's a bunch of civilians doing breaking into a prison you've got no business being in? You tell us what's going on out there and we'll tell you what's going on in here."
"How about you tell us what happened to make those doors close?" Theodore had his shield grounded and his hand read to go for his pistol but he sounded much less hostile than Daryl or Rick.
"A riot broke out." The Big Guy responded to that tone. "Never seen anything like it."
"Attica on speed, man." Civil War Guy put in, casting a nervous glance at the Latino who was taking in that everyone except me was carrying a handgun.
"Heard about dudes going cannibal." The Small Guy said quietly. "Dying. Coming back to life? Crazy."
"One guard looked out for us." The Latino seemed to find that amusing. "Locked us up here in the cafeteria. Told us to sit tight, threw me this piece." He patted the air near his waist and saw the twitches it provoked. "Said he'd be right back."
"He never came back." Tall Guy finished their story grimly. "We were thinking that the Army or the National Guard should be showing up any day now. Not you."
"There is no Army." Rick growled the word.
"What do you mean?" Latino replied and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"There's no government, no hospitals, no police. It's all gone."
Latino got even more suspicious, as did Small Guy. Tall Guy and Big Guy didn't seem to process it but Civil War Guy let his arms drop. "For real?" He asked and his eyes said he already believed.
"Serious." Rick said and twelve people had a moment of silence. The seven of us had seen it first-hand. Seen it far too closely. The five of them meanwhile had realised you didn't spend two seasons locked in a canteen if everything was okay.
"What about my moms?" Big Guy asked quietly and there was a clack as the broom handle touched the floor.
"My kids?" Tall Guy asked with deep note of anguish. "And my old lady? Yo, you go a cell phone or something so we can call our families?"
"You just don't get it, do you?" Daryl snarled. He still had the crossbow raised and wrong one move would pin someone to a wall. I hoped they understood that.
"No phones." Rick said. "No computers. As far as we can see, more than half the population has been wiped out, probably more… But we don't know for sure because we're down here in Georgia and 'cause there's no phones, no TV, no computers, no way to know what's happening ten miles away let alone up north or out west. But Atlanta? It's gone."
"We were there." Glenn added. "Atlanta's dead."
They still couldn't grasp it. "Ain't no way." Latino asserted.
"You can see for yourself. But first, we need to know what supplies you got back there." Rick pointed with his machete in his left hand and the long gory blade got their attention. Bad attention. Latino went for his gun and pointed it at Rick and Daryl didn't take him down. Instead Andrea, Rick and Theodore had their guns on him before Latino could react and Glenn and Maggie were a little slower but got theirs out too though they didn't point them. The other convicts reacted instinctively, backing up and raising their hands though they wore very different expressions. "You really want to play it that way?" Rick asked and his Colt Python was glaringly bigger than the Latino's .38. The symbolism made me laugh and that eased the tension momentarily as everyone wondered what the hell was wrong with me.
"We're after the food." Theodore was thinking about the last time he had shot at people but I didn't doubt he was prepared to shoot now. "You can't tell me that five guys ate everything in there in six months so how 'bout you let us see what you got and then we can work out a fair deal." He took a breath. "Or you can fight us on this and you can die in here."
He summed it up grimly, brutally, and in such a simple way that Latino who obviously had trouble with risk assessment realised this was a battle he couldn't win. He stashed the gun back in the knot and the lack of gun safety made Rick's police officer training smart. Latino put his gun away but my side didn't lower theirs. Rick ignored him and went into the kitchen. I looked around and guessed this wasn't the only cafeteria in the prison; it was too small for that. Maybe each pair of blocks had their own small canteen so they could keep the inmates from congregating in large numbers in one place.
The doors started to bang and it sounded like there were at least three walkers out there. It alarmed them but not us.
"You never tried to break out of here?" Theodore asked sceptically.
"We tried to take the doors off." Tall Guy said. "But if you make one peep in here… That happens." The walkers weren't getting past the fire iron but our voices meant they weren't going to leave. "Windows got bars on them that He-Man couldn't get through." It was no exaggeration so far as I could see.
"Bigger than a 5x8." Civil War Guy said quietly, trying to sound friendly despite the guns trained his way.
"Yeah, you won't find me complaining." Big Guy added. "Doing fifteen. My leg can barely fit on one of those bunks." Looking at him, I didn't see how he could have slept on the bed I had spent last night on.
Tall Guy chuckled. "Yeah, they don't call him Big Tiny for nothing."
Big Tiny wasn't much of a better nickname than the one I had given him. Fitting considering his size but also his meek nature. Small Guy looked to be more aggressive than him.
Rick returned with a sack of potatoes of all things. "Looks like we're in business." He said. "We could feed an army today or a hundred people for a year." He looked the five of them up and down. "You want to see what the world looks like?" He asked. "We'll show you."
As a display of strength, opening the doors and putting down three walkers, one of them in riot gear, in a matter of seconds was pretty effective. He left Andrea, Maggie and Glenn to take stock of the place and to gather up some supplies. Myself, Daryl, Rick and Theodore were on prisoner escort duty. I noted that Rick had left the two women behind, and Glenn so that Maggie wouldn't worry. We may have been outnumbered but they were on edge leaving their refuge for the first time in months and weren't going to try anything now. Besides, Daryl, Rick and Theodore were more than intimidating enough for the job. As was every dried or juicy corpse they passed on the way.
Back at our cells, Rick waylaid any trouble by telling them to keep on heading out and had me go tell the others what was happening. They had locked the gate to the section and I met Dale and Hershel at the bars.
"What's going on, son?" Dale asked.
"We found a cafeteria. And we found some prisoners, alive."
"That's not good." Hershel said calmly but grimly.
"Rick's handling it. And Andrea and Maggie are at the cafeteria with Glenn." I reassured both of them. "These guys have been in here since this all started. Rick's showing them what it looks like out there."
"I don't want to sound judgemental. It isn't Christian. But what kind of inmates are they?"
"We haven't asked yet… But get me a shotgun."
They passed it through the bars, Shane's old Mossberg, and we exchanged a last look before I headed out to join Daryl, Rick and Theodore. I was just in time to see Latino going for his gun again and Daryl and Theodore were faster on the draw once more. But he kept hold of the gun. Rick didn't go for his. Of all things, he looked fed up. This was a complication to his Promised Land he hadn't considered and didn't want.
"Hey, ese!" I called out, grabbing his immediate attention and he blanched to see the big barrel of the shotgun aimed at him. "Mine's bigger."
Civil War Guy leapt in, raising a hand at me and at Latino. "Whoa, whoa! Maybe let's try to work this out so everybody wins!" He put himself between Latino, Small Guy and Tall Guy and Rick and Theodore. Big Tiny stood well away.
"I don't see that happening." Latino growled.
"Neither do I." Rick was out of fucks to give.
"I ain't going back in that cafeteria for one more minute!"
Civil War Guy stared at him with frustrated incredulity. "There are other cell blocks." He pointed out the obvious.
"You could leave." Daryl's arms had to be aching from holding his crossbow at the guy's head for so long. Daryl was normally quite relaxed but Latino had him riled right up. "Try your luck out on the road."
There was a long silence and you could see Latino doing the math. The cogs grinding in his skull. The walkers down by the gates said that leaving was a bad idea. Daryl's ready willingness to put a bolt in his skull and my shotgun said he would lose any kind of fight before it even started. So he chose to save face. "If these pussies can do all this." Meaning the carnage in the yard. "The least we can do is take out another cell block."
"With what?" Big Tiny spoke for the first time.
"Atlanta here will spot us some real weapons." He actually sounded reasonable, level-headed, for the first time. "Won't you, boss?" Even respectful. I didn't buy it.
What Rick thought was hard to tell. He just looked tired. "The food in that cafeteria…" He said heavily. "We'll help you clear out a cell block and we'll take half the food."
"That's our food!" The levelheadedness vanished and the hot anger was back.
"And there's more of us than there are of you." Rick said wearily. "So you're getting a good deal. We give you weapons, clear out the cell block, we split the food evenly. You've got more food than choices right now." As if on cue a walker down by the gate snarled and rattled the mesh, making Big Tiny and Civil War Guy look back nervously. "You pay; we'll play. We'll clear out a block for you, then you keep to it."
I frowned, wondering what he meant by that. They had talked about all their plans for this place and I didn't see how that could happen with five guys who would need water from the creek and farmland to grow food just as much as we did.
"Alright." Latino said.
"But let's be clear." Rick's tone lost the weariness and got that growl it always did. "If we see you here, anywhere near our people." He stepped up close to Latino and Small Guy squared up like a cat beside him. Ignored. "If I so much as even catch a whiff of your scent." Rick was stood so close now that that scent had to be overpowering. "I will kill you."
It was the language that Latino understood. That he respected even. "Deal."
[][][][][][]
It would have taken a few days to properly divide the food so for the moment, they took a few boxes of canned goods and a sack of corn and potatoes. It was more food in one place than we had seen in months and there was much more in that cafeteria's store. Daryl and Theodore watched the convicts outside where they were revelling in the fresh air and getting an understanding of the walkers that had been downed on our way in through the lower yard and the ones still moving that were at the fence in the inner yard and down at the perimeter fences. Theodore had taken the shotgun and they weren't going to give him trouble.
"Good call going for that." Rick told me. The man rarely spoke to me and certainly didn't praise me.
"I know criminals." I shrugged. "Appeal to force. Just like you did."
He grunted and then went to decide what to arm them with while shrugging off the questions of everyone who wanted to know what he was going to do about them. He would only say that he was handling it. As Beth, Carol and Sophia began to put together a stew from the new supplies, I heard him talk to Lori in one of the cells. As much trouble as there was between them, he still confided in her his doubts that the two groups could coexist. And then expressed the simple solution to the problem.
"If that's what you think is best." Lori said. Far too readily because I heard Rick chuckle.
"You say this now…" He meant Shane and I stepped away. I had overheard this conversation before. The fight they had had by the roadside after the farm had fallen had been private but we knew it had been about her disgust and horror that Rick had killed Shane. Fair reactions, all things considered. But only before taking into account what Shane had planned to do. What Shane had done up to that point. Lori knew that but Rick hadn't forgiven her for not being there for him as he tried to deal with his best friend going mad and trying to kill him. And then killing that best friend first. I thought at this point Rick needed to let it go but I didn't know what it felt like to kill anyone, let alone a good friend. A friend who had slept with and quite possibly impregnated your wife. So how could I judge his feelings?
The stew was much better than the previous night's although my stomach was alarmed by a large meal so soon after the previous. As much as the last meal could be called big, and not counting the leftovers from this morning. The kids definitely appreciated it though and both Carl and Sophia got smiles on their faces as they ate. So did Beth. The others simply appreciated a full belly. They all made a point of not talking about the situation until it became absolutely necessary.
Dale was good with a rifle. Hershel was good with a rifle, shotgun and pistol. They may have been old men but they could still be armed and dangerous when they needed to. The two of them combined with the seven who had gone venturing into the prison that morning made a show of force that the smarter convicts understood.
Tomas the Latino was not smart. He looked at the collection of melee weapons he had been offered and scoffed. "Why do I need this when I got this?" He held up the .38 and Rick didn't appreciate the threat. It was a stupid threat too what with Dale with his rifle and Hershel with his shotgun, me with the Mossberg slung on my shoulder and everyone else with handguns at their sides. And Daryl, ever ready to nail with the crossbow. He answered the question.
"You don't fire guns. Not unless your back's up against a wall." He growled. "Noise attracts them. Really riles them up."
"We'll go in two by two." Rick explained. "Daryl will run point with T. I'll bring up the rear with you." He pointed the machete at Andrew; Small Guy. "Stay tight. Hold formation." I saw Tomas roll his eyes. "No matter how close the walkers get. Anyone breaks ranks, we could all go down. Anyone runs off, they could get mistaken for a walker; end up with an axe to the head."
"And that's where you aim." Daryl growled. "These things only go down with a headshot."
Tomas scoffed again. "You aint gotta tell us how to take out a man."
"They ain't men." Theodore put in. "They're something else." He and Daryl spoke like they were telling a story to children, and they had to. They just weren't getting it.
"Just remember to go for the brain." Rick concluded.
Dale and Hershel stayed back to watch the gate into the cell block, so that it was five of them and the seven of us. It was simultaneously reassuring to have the numbers and uncomfortable being hemmed in by them in the narrow dark corridor. Tall Guy or Oscar as he was named had Beth's woodaxe and Daryl advised him to hold it higher. That he would hear them before he saw them. Civil War Guy Axel and Big Tiny had taken the horror story part to heart and were nervous because of it. Although Axel I noticed wasn't so nervous not to glance at Andrea and Maggie's legs from time to time. I didn't know if that was a red flag for what he was in here for or just a man who spent so long in a small space with four other men for company.
"It's coming!" Axel suddenly called out, hearing the unmistakeable sounds down the passage. He was shushed but that was pointless. Our group was making enough noise anyway. At least here there was a bit more light. Two walkers shambled into view and Daryl held up his hand.
It was a waste of time as the five convicts dashed forward, yelling like idiots and then giving us a demonstration of how a prison riot looked. On a man their tactics would have brutally effective, if extremely inefficient. On a walker, stabbing several dozen times into the gut was a complete waste of time. As was breaking ribs. It was easier to kill a human than a walker but the one way to kill a walker was efficient.
"I'm rethinking my life of crime." I realised I had had this thought aloud because I earned some odd looks.
Eventually they took them through sheer attrition; there was nothing left for them to pummel but the head. It was only then that they realised we had stood back and watched. They took it in different ways. Axel, Big Tiny and Oscar looked embarrassed. Andrew and Tomas looked like we had betrayed them.
We pressed on with Daryl being unexpectedly patient and stressing again and again, 'The brain. Has to be the brain.' Like it was his mantra. We got an opportunity to properly deliver this lesson or more accurately, Oscar delivered the axe blade into a skull and the walker dropped immediately unlike all the punishment they had endured from their riot tactics. Axel took a turn and looked astonished as he impaled a skull… Because it was his first time. Rick took the next one with his machete and then a whole mass of walkers came at us.
"Stay in tight formation. No more prison riot crap." He snarled.
Andrea and Theodore covered the flanks with their shields and I hung back to hold my flashlight up high over the others' heads and it funnelled the walkers into the others and Tomas and Oscar had it now. Andrew only had a wooden bat which was not nearly as effective as metal for a one-hit kill. Axel was obviously not a fighter, but that didn't matter with everyone else pulling their weight. Except for the biggest weight. I felt Big Tiny push back past me and I glanced at him and saw the horror on his face. I had seen that look before so many times, from all kinds of adult to Sophia's tear-streaked freckles.
"Big guy!" I called to him. "Big Tiny!" It didn't get his attention but two walkers coming at him did. Fight or flight kicked in and he bashed one with his hammer but it was only a glancing blow that knocked it away. Another walker sent Rick back and they were between me and the big guy as he grappled with another walker. He put it down and then screamed as the first walker attacked him from behind. Rick finished off his opponent and then all our ears were left ringing as Tomas fired three shots into the walker that had attacked Big Tiny; narrowly missing Rick's head in the process.
It was not good.
"I'm telling you. I don't feel anything." Big Tiny insisted of the hole in his back. "It's just a scratch."
There was a crunch as someone took down a straggler. It didn't help Rick deliver the news. "I'm sorry, man."
"I can keep fighting!"
"I'm sure you can. But once one of those things bites you, it's only a matter of time." He glanced at me. "Not unless you do something drastic."
"Drastic?" Axel asked.
"Drastic." I confirmed and held up my hand. He swallowed at the sight and the implication.
"So you can do the same now." Andrew pressed.
"Look at where the bite is." Rick hissed, as if Andrew believed we actually could amputate the man's beefy left flank.
"Guys, I'm fine!" Big Tiny insisted loudly, freaked out by Rick and everyone else in our group's stance. He took a breath. "Just… I'm fine. Look at me. I'm not changing into one of those things." He didn't know what we knew. None of them had seen what we had.
"Look, man." Oscar didn't get it. "There has to be something we can do. We could just lock him up."
"Quarantine him." Axel supplied.
"We gotta do something." Andrew was the most riled up. "Why are you just standing there? We gotta save him!"
"There's nothing we can do." Rick told him grimly.
"You son of a bitch." Andrew was in disbelief, and holding his bat in a way I didn't like.
"I'll take him back." I said. "Put him in a cell. Hershel can-"
I got no further. A rope of hot syrup slapped me in the face and there was a thump as hundreds of pounds of meat hit the ground. I looked up and Tomas was looking contemplatively at his weapon. And then he drove it down into Tiny's head again. And again. And again. Again. Again. Until there was nothing left that could be called a skull.
The last person I had seen covered in that much blood had been Rick; the morning after he had killed Shane. But that blood had been dry. Tomas was painted with it and it dripped glutinously off his nose. And worked its way down my cheeks.
I was vaguely aware of someone steering me onward but I was focused on the fact it was the first time I had ever seen someone killed. I had seen dead homeless people. Dead junkies. But never witnessed a murder. And now I had seen one close enough to get it on me.
I shook it off. I was in too dangerous a place to shut down again.
We were getting in pretty deep so Rick had Maggie and Glenn hang back at one of the gates. They locked it and they had three ways to run if more came at them than they could handle but since Big Tiny had gone down, we had only encountered a few stragglers. Either this part of the prison was less infested or there was a door locked somewhere holding them back.
Five of us. Four of them. At least ours were standing watch rather than lying splattered in a dark corridor. Four and four really because I didn't match up to any of ours or the four of them. Except maybe Axel. He didn't have the stomach for this and that didn't make him much of a fighter; just as my age and build handicapped me.
We made our way into a laundry room that was well-lit and a respite from the dark corridors. It wasn't huge but I guessed it served the whole prison. There were some shelves with industrial cleaner and more of the blue jumpsuits and some plastic sealed sheets that I was drawn to. "Fresh." I said as I caught Andrea's eye. "I think everyone will appreciate that."
"You'll make a good housemaid." She replied and then stared at Tomas who had taken the distraction as an opportunity to eyeball her. He smirked but said nothing while she tightened her grip on her shield and chisel. There were a pair of double doors leading out and it sounded like it was those locked doors I had been thinking about. The half-dozen words that Andrea and I had exchanged had been enough to get their attention on the other side.
The concrete made the sound of keys hitting it much louder than they needed to be. Rick threw them at Tomas' feet and there was a single plastic spoon incongruously lying there. "I ain't opening that." Tomas declared.
"Yes you are." Rick replied, saying the words after literally throwing down a challenge. "You want this cell block? You're going to open that door. Just the one. Not both of them. We need to control this."
Tomas stooped and picked up the keys. He looked at his guys and didn't seem to notice Daryl was ready to take him out. Or that Rick saw the look he cast Andrew. I saw it. And all I could do was grip my crowbar a little tighter.
Tomas unlocked the door. "You bitches ready?" He asked and then heaved on the door. Which didn't open. He pulled again and it remained obstinately shut. "I got this." He declared. And then whipped both doors open with ease.
The first face I saw belonged to one of the grey-green clad guards. His uniform was mouldy, as were the jumpsuits of the four inmates who came snarling behind.
"I SAID ONE DOOR!"
"SHIT HAPPENS!"
I stood with Andrea on the left, Theodore and Daryl were on the right while Rick and the inmates were in the middle as they came at us and Oscar took down the guard before Tomas smashed a walker down and Rick swung the machete. I brought the gooseneck cracking down on a skull and Andrea smashed another walker back with her shield, tumbling a few back. A downed walker convict wasn't out of it and I stabbed down with the chisel as it grabbed at my foot. I heard Daryl use his crossbow and too many wet crunches before Rick and a walker sent me flying. Andrea stabbed it immediately and then swung with the shield again at an undead guard. I picked myself up and a splinter of something was stuck in my left arm.
Fortunately the fight was already over. Maybe. Rick squared up to Tomas and I caught Andrea's eye once more. Daryl was standing back to cover Rick, reloading the crossbow swiftly, and looking murderous.
"It was coming at me, bro." Tomas shrugged casually, meaning that the walker hadn't got past Rick's guard.
"Yeah." Rick nodded just as casually and I got a cold, hollow feeling in my gut. "Yeah, I get it." He actually grinned and that hollow feeling spread to my chest. "I get it. Shit happens…"
Everyone was standing back. Watching them. Not a single one of us breathing.
Then it all happened at once. Andrew screamed "NO!", Rick swung his machete into Tomas' skull deep enough for the blade to touch his nose and Andrea and Theodore both took shelter behind their shields to defend themselves. From Rick. Who kicked Tomas free of his weapon.
Andrew screamed and swung his bat at Rick but the cop was faster and kicked him too. He tripped on a walker and fell as Daryl stepped forward with his crossbow. "Easy now." He growled. Andrew did not take it easy. He took one look at Rick standing over him and rolled over and fled.
"I got him!" Rick declared and ran after him into the depths of the prison.
"Hey! Get down on your knees!" Daryl had turned the crossbow on Oscar. Oscar meekly raised his free hand and loosened his grip on Beth's wood axe with the other with the practice of a man who had been held at cop gunpoint before.
"We don't have no affiliation with what just happened!" Axel had gotten his knees without anyone telling him too, although Theodore had drawn his pistol. "Tell'em, Oscar!"
"Stop talking, man." Oscar replied resignedly.
"What do we do?" Andrea asked Daryl. "Go after Rick!" She told him.
"Nah, he got this." Daryl told her. He flicked his eyes at me. "You gonna use that or just wear it?" He snapped.
It took a moment for me to register that he meant the shotgun on my back. I unslung it, gripped it and Daryl relaxed ever so slightly. I didn't. "Please don't make me fire this in here. None of us will ever hear properly again."
It wasn't much of a joke and it did nothing to ease the tension. Axel was anticipating a bullet at any moment while Oscar… He seemed to be contemplating spending all that time locked in the cafeteria only to die in the laundry room. That was a pretty hard end of life experience.
When Rick returned the first thing he did was grind the barrel of his Colt against Oscar's skull and the man's lack of reaction only fuelled his anger.
"We didn't have nothing to do with that." He said. The calm measured voice of a black man who had dealt with officers of the law who took even the slightest tone as a threat to their safety. And Rick who was virtually bouncing with adrenaline was every bit one of those officers.
"You didn't know?" Rick chewed his lips and then growled from a deep place. "You knew!" He tore the skin on Oscar's shaved head. "Daryl! Let's end this now!" He spun and almost shoved the barrel of the revolver into Axel's mouth. I could only see the back of his head but whatever expression he wore left Axel a hair's breadth from wetting himself.
"Sir, please!" Axel openly wept. "Please, listen to me! It was them that was bad. It wasn't us!"
"Oh, that's convenient!" Rick ground the gun into Axel's face and he recoiled almost to the floor.
"You saw what he did to Tiny!" Axel shrieked and picked himself and looked Rick right in the eyes. "He was my friend! Please, we ain't like that!" He sniffed and swallowed. "I like my pharmaceuticals, but I'm no killer. Oscar here, he's a B and E, and he ain't very good at it neither."
I had been so focused on Rick that I hadn't even noticed Oscar. Andrea lunged and caught the shotgun before it could drop out of my nerveless hands as I saw Daryl with one hand on Oscar's head and the other on his knife; ready to cut Oscar's throat from ear to ear.
"We ain't the violent kind, they were!" I heard Axel wail as I slipped into the corner of the room. "Please! I swear to God! I wanna live!"
It became very, very quiet until it was broken by the sound of me retching up half of the first good meal I had had in weeks.
"What about you?" Rick whispered.
"I ain't never pleaded for my life." Oscar declared. "And I ain't about to start now. So you do what you gotta do."
That was when I left. I didn't even care if I met anything along the way. I didn't even realise I had left the flashlight behind in the laundry until I saw Glenn and Maggie's lights. I answered their question about what was happening by vomiting up the other half of the meal. "Just open the damn gate."
[][][][][][]
There wasn't really a view from the guard tower. I guessed the woods were intended to screen this place from the rest of the world which was probably the reason why we were the first to come here. There was some open ground beyond the perimeter fence but not much and so the only real sight was the creek. The green murky water flowed lazily beneath the footbridge and beyond that was the railway embankment.
The grass in the yard was long but not nearly as long as outside the fences. It would have been kept well-trimmed when this place had been functional so that the inmates couldn't use it for cover. When summer came the grass would explode with growth until it would look the same as outside. The treeline would grow toward the fences without anyone to hold it back. In ten years' time the fences would be brown with rust and the yard would be full of bushes and young trees with the road reclaimed by the grass. Another ten years after that and the guard towers would stand incongruously amidst a patch of young woodland.
Except we were here now. If this was home now and we could survive here with the rest of the world in ruins around us, the goal would be to ensure this place didn't fall apart. Not that it had been in good condition before all this. This small prison would have had a tiny budget to work with. The real money would have gone to the big facilities with a thousand or more inmates. Fortunately for us, this place only had a few hundred. Or maybe it was unfortunate because it meant we had come here rather than being scared off by a teeming mass of undead convicts. Just as we had been scared off everywhere else.
Dead inside. Dead outside. Dead everywhere.
This was just the first day. There was much, much more work to do here to clear the prison out. Days more work. Hundreds of walkers to put down. That work would never stop. Tomas had wanted to take the prison for himself and he wouldn't be the last. Rick had seen something in this place and others would too. The threat of Randall would actually be real here. We could only hope that the remoteness of rural Georgia and the screen of trees would make it hard for anyone to find this place. It wasn't like the road we had used to get here looked important. But we hadn't seen the other side yet. This couldn't be the main entrance of the prison. You couldn't make deliveries or have admin staff drive through inmate filled yards.
I missed the farm. The short time I had spent there, even with the intense pain in my hand and the nightmarish exodus, had been pleasant. I had never had a vacation in my life and the time there had been a respite from my old life and my new life. My old life had been filled with petty criminals and junkies. My new life was full of monsters and killers. The monsters had almost gotten me and Shane had been the first killer I had known when I had figured out what had happened to Otis. Then the others had been shot at in that town and they had killed people. That hadn't registered with me though. Not until now. Rick had killed at least two people there. He had killed Shane. Now today…
Killing my first walker was something of a blur. Would it be the same way when I killed a person for the first time?
[][][][][][]
"People have been looking for you."
"None of them thought to look up." Or in. I had watched Andrea and then Dale down by the front gate, watching over the vehicles. "What are you doing out here?"
Beth was the last person I had thought would find me. I always had the impression that she was shorter than she actually was. Five two rather than five-five. She was so petite she succeeded in making me look large and muscular. She had been forced to learn how to stand her ground against walkers though like me she was built for avoiding fights. But she knew how to shoot unlike me.
"I needed some fresh air. It doesn't smell nice in there…" She shrugged. "You missed dinner."
"Couldn't eat anyway."
She hesitated. "My daddy says Mr Grimes did what he had to do."
"So did they kill Axel and Oscar?"
Beth hesitated again. "He said they have to stay in their cell block." Apparently she hadn't known about the other option.
"That's something then."
"Maggie said you saw something that made you throw up." She said and then became embarrassed. "We've all been there! But she didn't know what it was or what it could be."
I looked at Beth. I was used to dealing with Sophia and her freckles and big brown eyes. Beth's pale face and big blue eyes were a similar and yet somehow entirely different challenge. In the moonlight she could have been a ghost. Like Sophia she always looked vulnerable. Lost. I didn't see how I could tell her that two of the people she trusted to take care of her had been willing to commit cold-blooded murder. Even though I knew the place it came from, Daryl had still being willing and ready to cut Oscar's throat like a hog. In his frenzied state, Rick could easily have strode back into that laundry room and shot both men while they knelt on the floor. I shook my head. I couldn't say anything.
First she put her hand on my shoulder, and then she swapped it for her cheek so that her blonde hair was pressed against my neck. I knew Beth was smart. She may have looked like the purest and most innocent person in the world but she was not naïve. She knew the world was a dark and scary place, the old world I meant, and she knew this new world was even worse and there were things that happened in it that she didn't want to see. Didn't want to know. And I had seen one of them.
She took my hand suddenly and then began to pray for me. I had always avoided the prayer circles where the three Greenes would sit with Glenn and invariably with Carol, Sophia and Theodore. As Andrea and Dale were our usual sentries, they were spared making excuses. Lori was usually sick in the mornings and tired in the evenings. Carl either kept his mother or father company and when Rick prayed it was when he was on his own. Daryl always had some chore to keep him busy that left no time to contemplate a Bible. That just left me as the obvious sinner not battering the Lord's eardrums.
You would never have guessed from the way Beth asked Him to grant me His Protection.
She didn't let go of my hand which was nice although part of me thought about the boy with a crush on her who always carried a loaded gun. I thought of asking her about this, teasing her about it, but the words wouldn't come. I was tired but not sleep tired. Right now, sitting here with Beth holding my hand and resting her head on me was the most relaxed I had been since… I didn't know.
"You're crying." She whispered and her soft country voice didn't help.
"Everything I saw on the road to Atlanta; it broke me. I just… Shut down." Beth squeezed my hand, knowing exactly what I meant and clasping her right wrist with her left hand as she relived it. "And everything after… But when it gets quiet, when we're safe like we are now." Behind multiple fences and the door to the tower. "I didn't sleep last night. Because there was no danger and that was what made me feel scared… And that makes no sense, I know! I'm scared when I'm safe. I'm scared when I'm in danger. I'm scared all the time now. The only time I wasn't scared was when I first came to your farm and I just lay in the dirt for a week. This place is-"
She cut me off by putting her other hand on my mouth. She didn't want to hear it. She had all the exact same thoughts and feelings and she kept them in. By this point we had all accumulated enough issues to stay in therapy for the rest of our lives and there was an unspoken agreement not to unload them. Which of course everyone violated when it got too much. Andrea had Dale. Glenn and Maggie had each other. Hershel had the Lord.
"Sorry." I said from behind her fingers.
"It's okay." She replied, lowering her hand. "You just can't close the box if you throw it open like that."
I knew what she meant. We all did. What I had just done was dangerous. Letting a moment get to you was okay but if you let everything pile on you at once… Well, Andrea had wanted to die, Beth had wanted to die and I hadn't cared whether I lived or died. "We need to start working on this place. Keep busy."
"You need a good night's sleep then."
"I don't remember those."
"You can't get used to your room if you don't sleep in it."
"My room? My cell."
"Not calling it that will help." She pointed out.
"How do you stay positive?"
"Hard work." She shrugged. "The world's as bad as it can be…So I have to find the good."
The sad thing was that I knew that things could be much, much worse… But what kind of monster would I be to disabuse her and crush the earnest spirit behind those blue eyes? "You're amazing."
Beth shrugged sheepishly and didn't know what to say. I did.
"We should probably stop holding hands. Before your boyfriend sees."
She turned pink but she had a ready response. "Worry about your girlfriend." Beth grinned at me and I lifted our clasped hands into the air. She let go.
"Thanks, Beth." I said
"You're welcome." She said, and then gave me a very unexpected hug. "Are you coming inside?"
"Not just yet." I looked up at the sky. Without a blaze of electrical lights to smother it, the night sky never stopped being amazing to me; especially on a clear night like this.
Beth squeezed my arm. "Don't be too long." She advised and then I listened to her walk down the steps. She opened the gate and crossed the yard as quietly as she could but her steps were still loud on the concrete. A useful property in many ways.
I looked down at Dale standing watch on the overturned bus by the main gate. He must have heard Beth coming and then going. Was he now looking at me? It was impossible to tell which way he was facing in the dark; he was just a hazy figure in his distinctive hat. The last thing I needed was people thinking Beth and I were hooking up. Actually there were many things I didn't need right now.
Author's Notes:
Something I've never liked in fiction is normal people being absolutely fine with killing. Peter and Edmund in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are kids and have no trouble putting on armour, grasping swords and cutting down monsters. It's not that easy. Obviously, the Walking Dead is about ordinary people becoming desensitized to violence and killing. Rick kills Dave and Tony in the bar in Season 2, and then Shane. Killing Shane messes him up. It hardens him. So he has little problem putting a machete into Tomas' skull. The first time Bas sees someone killed is Tomas turning Big Tiny into pulp. He has no time to process that before Rick kills Tomas and then Daryl and Rick are threatening to do the same to Axel and Oscar in cold blood. It's very nightmarish when you think about. To have Bas just accept that... Didn't feel right. Made him too 'tough'. Hence the little breakdown. He isn't Daryl.
Obviously, Dale is still around because the actor quit in real life and the character was hastily killed off in Season 2. I decided to keep Hershel from losing his leg and Andrea's with the Atlanta group so the timeline's diverging significantly. Meaning I won't be lifting entire conversations from the series like before. Maybe just the odd line.