silver springs, the walking dead

001, bloodletting

Camille put her hand on his arm. "Take a breather."

Rick nodded before he took a step back.

She looked over at her daughter. "Eden, go to your room."

Eden glanced over at the injured boy in front of her before she rolled her eyes and walked away.

~

Rick walked back into the house with another man.

"You know his blood type?" Hershel asked as he applied pressure to the boy's wound. "A-positive, sam- same as mine."

"That's fortunate. Don't wander far. Im gonna need you." Hershel said before turning to Otis. "What happened?"

"I was tracking a buck. Bullet went through it. Went clean through." Otis said sadly, it was obvious that he was feeling extremely guilty. "The deer slowed the bullet down, which certainly saved his life. But it did not go through clean. It broke up into pieces. If I can get the bullet fragments out, and I'm counting six."

Otis walked over to Patricia. "I never saw him, not until he was on the ground." She hugged her husband.

"Lori doesn't know?" Rick asked as he turned to the other man. "No."

He shook his head. "My wife doesn't know. My wife doesn't know." He began to cry and the other man began whispering to him.

~

The boy had woken up, so it had gotten harder to help him.

Maggie opened the door and looked at Rick and the man he was sat next to on the stairs. "Rick."

He stood up and walked in. "He needs blood."

"You, hold him down." Hershel told the other man, he went to his side and held him down.

"Dad!" The boy cried out.

"I got him." He muttered as the boy squirmed in pain.

He let out a scream in pain as Hershel used his pliers to get pieces of the bullet out of his wound.

"Stop! You're killing him!" Rick yelled.

"Rick, do you want him to live?" Hershel questioned.

Camille grabbed his arm. "He needs blood."

"Do it now!" The man yelled.

Rick held out his arm, putting a hand on her neck. She injected the needle into his arm, looking at his arm.

Rick's son's cries stopped and his went unconscious.

"Wait. Wait. Hey." The other man said as he looked at Hershel, his breaths shaky.

"He just passed out." Hershel replied. He continued to remove the fragments of the bullet. He held a piece up with the pliers. "One down..." He placed it down on the tray. "Five to go."

~

Camille was rocking Josie in her arms while her baby cried.

"Mom?" Eden said. "Is the boy gonna die?"

She took a deep breath in as she glanced at her daughter, who had been playing with some barbies on her bed. Finally Josie seemed to stop crying.

"I don't know honey." Camille replied. She didn't want to give her a false hope, like she had with Dawson.

"He's not gonna end up like Dawson, is he?" Eden questioned.

Camille frowned, she hated knowing that her daughter was in pain. "Baby, it was different with Dawson." She sat beside her.