HEART FOR BRAINS • the walking dead

016: three down

"Anyone else?"

"I— I couldn't tell." Hershel responded.

"Stay put." Rick told them, taking down another nearby Walker. Glenn sliced the head of the last one.

"Those chains didn't break on their own. Someone took an ax or cutter to 'em." He said, out of breath. Rick turned to the other prisoners immediately.

"You think they did it?" Glenn asked.

"Who else?"

An alarm blared. Rio wasn't sure where it was coming from but it was loud and horrible to listen to and probably attracted a ton of walkers. He covered his ears as they continued to sound.

"What's that?" Glenn questioned, looking around the yard. Rio looked over to him, fingers still in his ears and Glenn just put his hands over his own ears too.

"Oh.. you gotta be kidding me!" Daryl exclaimed.

"Can you stop it?" Rio asked Rick, wincing at the sound. The man looked around, pinpointing where the noise was coming from.

"Daryl." Rick called, throwing him a set of keys.

Rick shot at the alarms on the wall, shutting down the sound, but there were so many. For everyone they shot it felt like another started up.

"Kill it!" Hershel screamed.

Walkers from the outside surrounded the fence, rattling the metal as they tried to break through.

"How the hell can this be happening?" Rick demanded as he walked over to the prisoners. The one tried to defend himself as they all surrounded him, Daryl even had his crossbow ready and pushed Rio behind him.

"Woah, woah, woah! It has to be the backup generators."

"Well, how do you turn those on?"

The man stumbled over his words, finding it hard to explain. "There's three that's connected to a diesel tank, okay? Each one controls a certain part of the prison. The hacks shut 'em all off when the prison was overrun."

"Can someone open up the main gates electronically with full power?"

"I only worked in there a few days. I... I guess it might be possible."

Rick grabbed the scruff of his shirt pulling him away. "Come with us!"

"Let's go!" Glenn shouted to them, heading away from the gates and towards Cell block C. Rick ran in first, gun pointed as he burst through the doors.

"Lori!" He yelled frantically. "Carl!"

"We just took down five of 'em in there." Daryl explained as he walked through the door, hurrying to catch up with Rick.

"There were four in here, but no sign of Lori or any of them."

"They must've been pushed back into the prison."

"Are they gonna be okay?" Rio asked.

"Yeah, yeah they'll be okay." Daryl answered just before Rick started again.

"Somebody is playing games!" He yelled, the alarm still blaring behind him. "We'll split up and look for the others. Whoever gets to the generators first, shut them down!"

"Let's go." He called and they all followed behind him, into another room. Rio stopped when he realised Glenn wasn't with them but Daryl moved him along. Told him that they couldn't stop yet.

They hurried through the prison, running into walkers around every corner. After the first one or two Rio's gun clicked. Empty. Daryl kept him near, shooting down Walkers or Stabbing the ones that got too close.