RULE THE WORLD | D.DIXON

137

More walkers came towards them, Negan pointed towards one. "Hey. Y'all know Blackbeard, too?"

Elijah went to kill it, but Maggie held him back and looked at Negan. "Think we can find more?"

Negan, Violet, and Max tied the three walkers to trees, while Maggie and Elijah buried her sister's friend. They had a little funeral, Maggie promised the teen that they will find his sister and kill every last one of the Reapers.

Violet and Gabriel went off to scoot out any Reapers, while Negan made Whisperers masks for everyone. Max and Maggie practiced acting like a Walker before Negan had let one go.

Max ripped off his mask when Maggie stumbled over a rock, gaining the Walker attention on them. Elijah and Negan tied back up the walkers as Maggie throw her mask on the ground.

"This piece of shit." She growled.

Negan chuckled, picking it up. "It's not gonna fit you prefectly. It was someone else's face. Look, this might actually work. And I mean it. If I can do it, hell even Max can do it, you can do it, too."

A hour or two later with camp set up, and Maggie and Max rounding up as many walkers they could, putting them into a makeshift cage, they were making good progress. Max took off his mask, tossing it on his bag and sat down. He rummaged through it, before pulling out new bandages and a canteen.

He took off the bloody bandage and sliced open a hole in his pant where his stab wound is before he poured some water over the wound, cleaning it with a rag. He quickly wrapped the new bandage around his leg, not wanting to hear Negan and Maggie argue again.

Max stood up, asking Maggie if he could her bow and picked it up when she nodded. Throwing the quiver over his shoulders, he walked into the woods and began hunting like his dad taught him.

***

Violet and Gabe came back informing Maggie that the food was still there. Now it was time to bring the herd to Meridian, collecting more walkers as they went until they got a huge horde of them.

They were a few feet away from Meridian, circling the horde around for a few hours until it got dark before they started to move in. Upon moving in, an explosion occurred causing several of the walkers to explode, leading Max to whisper.

"Watch out for the mines." His message was echoed by the others.

Maggie and Gabriel, breaking off from the group and sneaked around the side of the building. The trio stopped when a Reaper came into view above them and Daryl's voice sounded.

"Hey, man, you're missing all the fireworks." Daryl says, coming into view.

"Dixon. What are you doing here?" The man asked.

"Pope told me to walk the perimeter, so I'm walking the perimeter. You wanna smoke?"

Daryl and the man shared cigarettes, before there was a grunt and the man's body fell from the lookout post. Maggie and Gabe immediately grabbed the body, dragging it over to the fence and searched it, taking the Walker talkie.

"Hey, hey, around that way. Go." Daryl whispered shouted to them before the three took off.

Gabriel and Maggie went through the hidden passage, climbing out on the other side of the fence into Meridian. It looked like they were in the garden that smelled horrible.