DOOMSDAY¹ ― glenn rhee

run

Rick ignores his protests, turning sharply to face the others. "Sasha! Abraham!"

"Got it!" Abraham slaps the car door before slinking into the driver's side, yelling out of the open, rusted window. "We'll do it live!"

Rick nods gruffly. "You meet Daryl at red. Let him take them through the gauntlet."

"Yeah, we meet at red." Sasha confirms, moving to the passenger side of the car without a second of hesitation.

"Go!" Rick commands.

Glenn takes a deep breath, adjusting his gun strap over his chest. His boots scuffle on the pebbles lodged into the ground from his urgency, sweat beading from his clasped palms. "Rick, I'll hit the tractor place."

Rick nods gratefully. "Okay, who else?"

Glenn turns back to Heath, clapping him on the shoulder to keep him close and in the loop. "We got to take them out or they'll distract the horde."

Heath nods in earnest agreement, but before the two of them could start moving, Nicholas cuts in between the two of them.

"I'm here, let me help." He says, but even as he volunteers, Glenn can see the uncertainness in his eyes and the way they skirt to the ground the second he looks at him.

"No." Glenn replies.

"I'm here!" Nicholas yells back, with a conviction and a sharpness that Glenn isn't used to. It makes him pause, staring Nicholas in the eyes for a split second before his resolve weakens. There is no time to debate. Not now.

He grunts, pointing directly in his face. "Do everything I say."

Nicholas lets out a deep breath. "I will."

And Glenn nods.

"Rick, this was supposed to be a dry run!" Carter yells over the sound of the chaos.

"Daryl, get ready." Rick doesn't pay him any mind, still barking out orders.

"Rick, we haven't even gone through the whole plan!" Carter blocks his path, staring at Rick with a panicked look in his eyes. However, now wasn't the time to panic.

"You wanna go back, go back, we're finishing this." Rick barks. As Glenn runs in the opposite direction alongside Heath and Nicholas, he hears the rest of his orders. "Tobin! You hit it on my signal. They're heading for home. We don't have a choice. Get ready to hit the flares. Now!"

The last thing Glenn hears as he sprints away is the sound of flares firing into the quarry below, leading the walkers into two different directions just as Rick had planned, roaring explosions almost rocking him off of his feet. He grips hold of his glare gun as tightly as possible, weaving through the masses of terrified Alexandrians with expert precision, refusing to allow them to slow him down. He had the plan memorised from the first run through, and he is sure that alongside Heath, they will pull it off.

But everyone else?

Glenn isn't too sure.

There is no time to ponder the success of Rick's plan while a herd of hundreds is set right for home. Right for his family. There would be no room for failure, not by him, not by Rick, not by anyone who had volunteered to be a part of it. Failure to split the walkers and draw them away meant almost certain death. Glenn has no intention of letting even one single walker stray too close to his wife and his kids (though she is quite capable of dealing with them herself) but even through his confidence, he can't stop his heart from beating at a million miles an hour, just as fast as the clap of his shoes against the dirt road. The sound of the explosions slowly filter into nothing the further away he gets, replaced only by the sound of the flares periodically shot in the air by the three of them, alerting the others of their position.