CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
[ sudden chaos ]
The next day, they start moving the cars in. Carol pulls the last one in, and Rick says, "Alright, let's get the other cars in. We'll park 'em in the west entry of the yard."
"Good," Daryl replies. "Our vehicles camped out there look like a giant 'vacancy' sign."
"After that, we need to load up these corpses so we can burn them."
"It's gonna be a long day," T-Dog comments. Yes, it is, Misty thinks. Again.
"Where's Glenn and Maggie?" Carol asks once she gets out of the car. "We could use some help."
"Up in the guard tower," Daryl answers.
"Guard tower?" Rick says. "They were just up there last night."
Misty chuckles, thinking she knows the exact reason why they're up there. "Glenn! Maggie!" Daryl hollers up to them.
Glenn stumbles out of the door at the top of the tower, no shirt and buttoning his jeans. Just as she'd suspected. "Hey! What's up guys?"
"You comin'?" Daryl asks, as he and all the rest of them chuckle, trying and failing to contain themselves.
"What?" They laugh even harder.
"You comin'?" He repeats. "C'mon, we could use a hand!"
"Yeah, we'll be right down!" He goes back inside, and the others go back to the cars, still laughing.
Until T-Dog sees something. "Hey Rick."
Rick stops laughing when he sees the prisoners, the two that are left: Oscar and Axel. Rick starts toward them, the others following. "That's close enough! We had an agreement."
Axel starts talking right as Glenn and Maggie join them. "Please, mister. We know that, we made a deal. But you gotta understand. We can't live in that place another minute, you follow me? All the bodies, people we knew. Blood, brains everywhere. There's ghosts."
"Why don't you move the bodies out?" Daryl asks.
"You should be burning them," T-Dog tells them.
"We tried, we did," Axel says.
Oscar elaborates. "The fence is down on the far side of the prison. Every time we drag a body out, those things just line up. So hump in a body and just running back inside."
"Look, we had nothing to do with Thomas and Andrew, nothing! You trying to prove a point? You proved it, bro. We'll do whatever it takes to be a part of your group, just, please, please, don't make us live in that place!"
"Our deal is not negotiable," Rick tells them. "You either live in your cell block, or you leave."
They leave the two men locked out for a few minutes while they discuss their options. Rick leads, as always, with T-Dog as the dissenting opinion. "Are you serious? You want them living in a cell next to you? They'll just be waiting for a chance to grab our weapons, you want to go back to sleeping with one eye open?"
"I never stopped. Bring them into the fold. If we send them off packing, we might as well execute them ourselves." T-Dog has a good point. Still, the thought of living right next to these total strangers doesn't sit well.
"I don't know, Axel seems a little unstable," Glenn says.
"After all we've been through? We fought so hard for all this, what if they decide to take it?" Carol asks.
"It's just been us for so long. They're strangers. I don't. . ." Maggie trails off. "It feels weird all of a sudden to have these other people around."
"You brought us in," T-Dog argues.
"Yeah, but you turned up with a shot boy in your arms, didn't give us a choice."
"They can't even kill walkers," Glenn points out.
"They're convicts, bottom line," Carol adds.
"Those two might actually have less blood on their hands than we do," T-Dog says.
"I get guys like this. Hell, I grew up with them," Daryl says. "They're degenerates, but they ain't psychos. I could have been with them just as easy as I'm out here with you guys."
"Yeah, me too," Misty adds, nodding. "At one time."
"So you with me?" T-Dog asks.
Daryl shakes his head. "Hell no! Let 'em take their chances out on the road, just like we did!"
"Sorry, T," Misty apologizes. "We can't risk it."
T-Dog starts to argue again, but Rick cuts him off. "When I was a rookie, I arrested this kid. Nineteen years old, wanted for stabbing his girlfriend. The kid blubbered like a baby during the interrogation, during the trial. Suckered the jury. He was acquitted due to insufficient evidence, and two weeks later shot another girl. We've been through too much. Our deal with them stands."
Rick walks away, his decision final, and his story hanging in the air.
After taking the cars out to the upper yard, Misty, Daryl, Rick, and Glenn step out of the hole in the fence. They face the woods, surveying the area. A walker comes out of the trees across the small stream. "Should I take her out?" Glenn asks, pointing his gun.
"No. If that armoury hadn't been picked clean, we could spare the ammo," Rick answers, and Glenn's arm drops back to his side.
"Gotta start makin' runs. The sooner the better," Daryl says, then looks over at Misty walking beside him. "You an' me, yeah?"
She nods. "Yeah." Truthfully, there is no one she'd rather go on a run with.
They go out into the woods to gather firewood to burn the bodies of the walkers they'd killed in the past few days. Misty, Glenn, and Rick come back with arms full of wood. Daryl is empty-handed only so he could protect them outside, and so he can close the fence behind them.
They step back through the hole in the fence. Once through, their attention is brought up to the courtyard across the yard by Daryl saying, "looky here."
There is Hershel, walking on his crutches with Lori, Beth, Addie, and Carl at his side, just in case. "He is one tough son of a bitch," Glenn says. Misty is inclined to agree. "Alright Hershel!" He cheers, only to be shushed by Daryl.
"Keep your cheers down." Daryl points behind them, where more walkers come out of the woods.
"Oh, man, can't we just have one good day?" Evidently not.
But they watch Hershel with the others and smile, content and happy at least in this moment.
And then they see the walkers appear behind the others. A whole flood of them, right behind Hershel and the rest. And Misty's heart stops.
She throws the wood to the ground, and starts to run. Rick and Daryl do, too. Glenn comes with them, but has to scramble back to close the fence. Rick is shouting, screaming. Terrified.
Her heart pounds, eyes never leaving Addie as she runs behind Rick.
But Glenn has the keys to the gate. Glenn, who is so far behind. They skid to a stop. Glenn throws the keys to Daryl, who throws them to Misty, who tosses them to Rick, who runs faster than she'd ever seen him toward the gate.
Maggie, T-Dog, and Carol are there, shooting as many walkers as they can, trying to get everybody inside. And the rest of them, running at breakneck speed across the yard. They finally get to the courtyard, and everyone is gone but Hershel and Beth, who are locked behind a gate up some stairs.
"What the hell happened?" Rick asks, a growl to his voice.
"The gate was open," Beth says.
"Where's Lori, Carl, everyone else?"
"Maggie led Lori and Carl into C block," Hershel tells him.
"And T was bit," Beth adds. Misty's heart sinks. T-Dog. Jesus.
"Anyone else?" Rick asks.
"I couldn't tell."
"Addie?" Misty asks. "Did you see Addie?"
"I think she got inside, but after that. . ." the girl trails off, unsure.
"Stay put," Rick tells the two of them, and then leads them over to the gate where the lock is dangling down. Broken.
"Those chains didn't break on their own," Glenn says. "Someone took an ax or cutters to 'em." The two prisoners stand a little ways away, and Rick's gaze turns to them. "You think they did it?"
"Who else?" Rick growls.
But then, with their eyes on the prisoners, an alarm starts to go off. "What's that?"
"Oh, what the hell?" Misty sighs, shaking her head.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Daryl shouts, just as frustrated as everyone else.
Rick points his gun upward, and starts shooting at all of the speakers in the courtyard. Misty, Daryl, and Glenn do the same. He then goes to the prisoners, and points his gun at them. "How can this be happening?" He asks.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, it has to be the backup generators!" Oscar answers.
"Well how do you turn those on?"
"There's three that's connected to a diesel tank, okay? Each one controls a certain part of the prison. The hatch shut them all off when the prison was overrun."
"Can someone open up the main gates electronically, with full power?"
"Well, I only worked there a few days, I. . . I guess it might be possible."
Rick grabs him, and pulls him along with them as they run into the prison. Misty and Rick go into C block, shouting for their kids. "Addie!" she yells. "Addie!"
"Lori!" Rick shouts. "Carl!"
But her daughter isn't there, and neither are Lori and Carl. Daryl and Glenn come in, the prisoners in tow. "We just took down five of 'em in here," Daryl tells them.
"There were four in here, but no sign of Lori or anyone," Rick explains.
"Addie wasn't here," Misty says, feeling the panic start to set in.
"We're gonna find her," Daryl reassures her, putting a hand on her arm. "Gonna find all of 'em."
"The walkers must have been pushed back into the prison," Glenn then says to Rick.
Their leader looks about as mad as Misty is panicked. "Somebody is playing games! We'll split up and look for the others. Whoever gets to the generators first, shut 'em down!"
They split up, and Misty goes with Daryl, Rick, and Oscar to find the generators. They are being followed by walkers, so many walkers, and duck into a room nearby. This, thankfully, is the room with the generators. Rick enters, and while he goes to figure out the generators, the three of them hold the door shut as the walkers beat against it, trying to force it open.
"How do you shut these down?" Rick asks, prompting Daryl to tell Oscar to go help him. Now only he and Misty are left, trying desperately to hold the door shut.
Oscar goes to help him, and they hear the two men talking for a few moments. And then, over her shoulder, she sees it. A man with a bat, swinging for Rick's head. Daryl sees it too, and tells her, "go!"
She doesn't have time to ask if he's sure, if he can hold the door on his own. She lets go, and runs to help Rick. Holding him against one of the generators is a man in a prison jumpsuit— one of the men that they'd thought was dead.
Misty pulls the man off of Rick, and sweeps his feet out from underneath him with her foot. His back hits the ground, but as soon as he's down, he starts getting back up and going after Rick again, a murderous glint in his eye.
Without hesitation, Misty pulls out her gun, flicks the safety off, and pulls the trigger. The man falls back to the ground, bullet hole in his head, dead.
She just stands there for a moment, feeling the rush of guilt hitting her all at once. The horror of what she'd done overtaking her, just as another emotion floods through her: relief. Relief, as she looks at Rick and finds him unharmed. Because of her.
She shrugs all of these emotions off, pushes away everything she feels about what she'd just done, and follows Rick and Daryl back outside into the courtyard, where they meet up with Glenn and Axel. Still, nobody is there but Hershel and Beth.
"You didn't find 'em?" Hershel asks.
"We thought maybe they came back out here," Glenn answers.
"What about T, Carol, Addie?"
Misty begins to shake, and her eyes fill with tears. "They, uh," Daryl starts, glancing over at her. "They didn't make it."
A door opens nearby, and Misty looks up, hope filling her heart. But it isn't Addie that walks out into the courtyard, it's Carol. And though she is glad her friend is okay, she feels her heart begin to shatter.
"Carol," Rick says, "did you see anybody in there?"
"T didn't make it. He saved our lives, but then he—"
"Our?"
"Me and Addie. We were together, but then. . ." she trails off, looking over at Misty. "We got separated by more walkers. I'm so sorry, Misty."
She's gone, Misty thinks. She's gone.
"We're going back," Rick is saying, but she doesn't hear. "Glenn, Daryl—"
He is interrupted by a door opening again. It isn't Addie this time, either, and the sound of the door is followed by a baby's cries. Out comes Maggie and Carl, a baby in Maggie's arms. Blood covers both of their hands. Maggie is crying. Lori is not there.
They all come to the realization at the same time. The only sound that drowns out her own heart breaking is the sound of Rick's screams.