I was leant up in a corner of the train cart with Luke and Molly asleep on either side of me. Daryl hadn't strayed to far always standing close or sitting nearby. Martinez had told the others what had happened before he was taken, no doubt needing to explain before Glenn attacked him. Which he would have done maybe in a different location or if he hadn't have shown up with the kids. Glenn told me about the dead walkers they'd found up on the train tracks and how he knew it was me which made me smile. Maggie told me how she had gotten off the bus to find Beth but ran into Sasha and Bob instead. She was the one that had killed the walkers on the bus, looking for Glenn. Glenn explained about how Tara helped him out on the road before they ran into Abe, Eugene and Rosita. On their journey to Terminus they had finally caught up to Maggie, Sasha and Bob and they all arrived together.
We all told our stories. Daryl explained about Beth and I told what happened up on the tracks and the walkers Glenn found. Rick told about the group in the house and how he and Carl had stumbled on Michonne and eventually me and then Daryl. He said the group Daryl was with attacked, that we were forced to kill them, but the more brutal details he left out.
"Where?" Maggie had asked when I told her I had gone home and buried dad.
"Near Otis." I whispered back and then smiled. "I found Nelly. Out in a paddock, grazing."
"She's alive?" Maggie smiled.
"I brought her back." I said with a slight scoff over my stupidity. "Said it was because the car would run out of fuel and she'd come in handy to carry bags. It was true, but... that wasn't why."
"Beth would have done it." She said with a small smile.
I smiled and started to laugh lightly. "Beth would have brought the chickens." Then Maggie laughed.
It was after, when everyone was done that Glenn slowly began to explain another story. One that left everyone speechless and staring at the awkward man with a mullet sitting in the corner.
"Impossible." I said.
"People would have said the same thing about the dead walking a few years ago." Eugene defended.
"The dead are dead." I spat back. "You can't fix that. Cure... what medicine? Stop people from turning from here on out? The walkers will still be around and you can't just get a bottle of pills to everyone left alive."
"You're quite the pessimist, darlin'" Abe stated.
"Realist." I spat back. "How?" I asked, turning back to Eugene.
"It's classified."
"Classified." I smiled. "What the hell do you think is going to happen if you tell us? We'll run off and rat you out to the enemy? Whisper it to the corpses?" I mocked.
"Kat." Glenn said in a soft voice and I looked over to see him slowly shake his head at me in a silent way that said 'not now.'
"I couldn't begin to explain it to you." Eugene continued, apparently not liking having been questioned. "Even if I had a notebook here to write it all down, I could not expect you to understand."
"Hey," Daryl began to get defensive, but I snapped back for myself before he could.
"I'm a Doctor, smart-ass, try me." Okay so I was an animal Dr, but his attitude kind of pissed me off.
"You leave him be." Abe called, not threateningly, but it was clear he had his friends back.
"Enough." Rick stopped it. "We have bigger problems at the moment."
Everything went back to silence after that. And that left only one more question to be asked. It was Tara that asked it.
"Why do you think we're in here? Why are they keeping us alive?"
"Maybe they don't like killing. They just don't trust." Glenn offered.
"Then they wouldn't have put up signs." Rosita answered.
"I killed five of them." I spoke as I shook my head. "3 with a sniper outside the fences, two who tried to bring me in... and they still shot at my feet. There's other train carts around this place... whatever this is... I don't think we're the only ones. And they've put those signs up for a reason. If Martinez was in here and they moved him out... he's dead. They're not afraid of killing."
"He could have been moved to another cart." Bob said.
"Why just him?" Rick asked. "No." He shook his head. "Kats right. And if they come back for more of us... we need to be ready." Rick moved, grabbing my father's watch he still had on him and moving over to a piece of splintered wood in the cart. He began to saw at it with the chain, cutting deeper and deeper to make a sharp wooden point.
Daryl moved over to me, crouching down in front of where I remained unable to move with two kids sleeping up against me. He looked to them for a minute and them back up at me before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pocket knife. My pocket knife. The one I hadn't thought much of since leaving it in the eye of my attacker. I smiled as he held it out to me and I took it. Turning it over in my hand before I lightly shook my head and handed it back.
"Keep it." He was going to protest but I shoved it into his chest a little harder. "They'll take the men first, Daryl. It's the smart move."
"We didn't kill any of theirs. You did."
"Rick did." I shot back. "It's different... out there. I had a gun, they took it. In here... our biggest hope is strength. They'll want Rick gone soon. And after him they'll base it on physicality. If their smart. You and Abraham." I nodded over to our new companion. "They'll go for me or Michonne before Eugene. They might rank him with Maggie or Rosita at a glance. Glenn's fit but he's small, they'd have to know he's fast and he led that group here so... another leader to take out.
Daryl slipped the knife back into his pocket. It was bullshit and he knew it was. These people weren't afraid of us. But there was one thing I had said that was true... in here with no weapons our biggest chance was strength. If we were taken out he would stand a better chance of breaking free. So he needed the knife. Simple.
"Do we need knives?" A sleepy voice asked as a small little girl spoke.
I smiled down at her. "Don't worry about it, Molly."
"I still have them." She said back.
"What?" I questioned before she started to move, reaching into her sock and pulled out one flat throwing knife. "They didn't search me." She shrugged. "At least not in my shoe. I gave one to Martinez, Luke has the other." She said quietly as I looked over to Daryl and then moved to Luke, lightly shaking him awake.
"Hey, Luke. Wake up." I gently shook him as he stirred a little before his eyes fluttered open. "Do you have one of these?" I held up the knife and he nodded before pulling out the second. He also kept it in his sock. I smiled and took it before standing up. "Rick." I moved over to him and held out the two small little flat knives that he quickly snatched up with a questioning look on his face before I nodded over to the kids. "There were three. They gave the other to Martinez."
He nodded. "Keep that one." He passed me back one, keeping the other for himself. "Maggie." He called my sister over before gesturing her to keep working on the splintered wood, her being the closest to us before he placed a hand on my shoulder and lightly guided me over to the other side of the cart. He spoke quietly so no one else could hear. Glenn stood near Maggie, Abraham's group and Tara mostly kept to their own corner and Sasha and Bob I had noticed didn't stray too far from each other. Daryl stayed with the kids.
"They're going to come after you." Rick said in a low voice. "Before us."
"Yeah, I know."
"Alright, listen to me." Rick dropped his head to be at a more level height. "If they pull you out of here... you do what you have to to get out alive. Do not... do you here me Katherine... do not come back for us. Not without a plan. You run out that gate, you scramble over that fence and you do not look back until you know you're in the clear. We will take care of ourselves. Come back with the guns if you have to, but you keep the element of surprise and you watch your own god damn back. Got it?" He asked firmly.
"Yeah." I nodded.
"Good." He stated, tapping my right arm as I flinched. "Sorry." He said with a slight smile and I chuckled back.
"It's fine, not like I was shot or anything." I said back sarcastically before moving back over to Daryl as he glared at me slightly.
"Did you say shot?" He questioned as I looked up at him.
"Oh, did I leave that bit out?"
"Yeah, I think ya mighta."
The hours ticked by, we grew hungry, we grew tired, then we became overtired and the clock seemed to reset. We worked on making weapons, weapons out of anything we could get. Pieces of wood from inside the cart, belt buckles. We didn't have much, but we would make it work.
"Alright, we got four of those pricks coming our way." Daryl informed.
"You all know what to do." Rick said as everyone began to get ready. "Go for their eyes first, then their throats.
"Get your backs to the walls at either end of the car." A voice yelled from outside. "Now!"
We had stick of wood and fists up, ready to fight... and then the roof opened, before something dropped in. I didn't see it, I was behind Abe from where it fell, but he reacted fast, yelling for everyone to move as smoke exploded through the cart, everyone broke out into coughs as a wave of lightheadedness over took. I just managed to shove the small throwing knife into my front pocket before I hit the ground.
I never passed out completely. Things were blurry and unadjusted. I was in the crate then I was outside with a blinding light burning my eyes. I hit the ground again, hard and I was vaguely aware that their were other bodies around me. I was still made to use my own feet, being shoved and pulled in a jerking manor until we were back indoors. It was a cold and dank open warehouse room. Metal slated all around and I could hear an electric saw and saw a body and blood before passing three bins. My head was finally starting to recover and my footing grew steadier as things became more clear. Whatever they used on us it didn't have a very long effect. There were three words painted on each of the bins. BURN, FEED, and WASH.
The backs of my knees were kicked so that my legs gave out and I found myself kneeling over a trough. I was on the end. Like sitting at the head of a table, but no one was to the right, only my left. First was Bob and then it was Rick. Then Daryl was brought in, struggling a lot harder than the previous two and shoved down next to Rick. Their gas grenade apparently had worn of quicker on him, and then finally was Glenn. There were another four people, people I didn't know or recognise, from the other storage carts around the place, no doubt. Every singly one were men. And were were all bound and gagged.
The sound of blades being sharpened filled the room. My knife felt like it was burning a hole in my front pocket. But I couldn't reach it. My hands were behind my back and I knew that should have been a foreseeable thing, but I hadn't had time to think it through when I concealed the knife. All I knew was I had to keep it hidden.
There were two men left in the room once we had all been lined up, just two. They wore butcher aprons, blood covering the front. I could see them clearer than the others who were all forced to keep their backs to them. One had a bat, a metal one. The other a knife.
The man on the end was young, maybe my age with very light blonde hair. He was struggling to breathe through his gag as his heart raced, panic setting in as they stood behind him. Maybe it was a good thing he couldn't see... because I sure as hell didn't want to.
The man with the bat swung and knocked him out cold instantly, the second nearly moving before he was done, stepping forward, holding the unconscious man's head up and slicing his throat open with a blade. His body hung limp over the trough as blood sprayed out into it and he bled out, thick red crimson pooling in the metal tub and running down towards me, to the drainage hole at my end.
The screams of panic at the sight began to grow louder from the other hostages, but all of our mouths were gagged and it came out a muffled groan. But only from the other end of the trough. Daryl looked away, but remained silent, Glenn's breathing clearly picked up, Rick remained silent and Bob couldn't seem to look. I... I couldn't help but stare. They moved quick. There were eight people not including myself. And they moved to the second without pause. And then the third and then there was just one person left between that bat and Glenn.
"Hey, guys." A voice called as the leader, who Rick had informed me earlier was named Gareth, came in with a notebook and pen. "What were your shot counts?"
"38." The man with the bat answered before hitting the forth man over the head before his throat was split open without missing a beat. Glenn had his eyes squeezed shut as he bit down hard on the gag, waiting for what was coming next. I tried to pull on the restraints, panic setting in.
"Hey." Gareth called over to the second man, stopping them for a moment. "Your shot count?"
There was silence for a moment as Glenn seemed to become less tense before the man finally answered. "Crap, I'm sorry." He said. "It was my first round up."
"After you're done here go back to your point and count the shells." Gareth said. "Kaylee won't be gathering them until tomorrow."
"Hey! Hey, let me talk to you!" Bob tried to yell through his gag.
Gareth ignored him as he looked over us and then the dead. "Five from A and four from D."
"Yep."
"Hey, let me talk to you for a minute!" Bob tried again, his words only just being able to be understood. Gareth looked up with a sigh and moved to take of the gag. "Don't do this." Bob said right away as I my gaze drifted over to Daryl's, holding his firmly. "We can fix this."
"No, you can't." Gareth said right back and went to put his gag back into place.
"You don't have to do this!" Bob shouted, causing him to stop once again. "We told you there's a way out of all of this. You just have to take a chance." Bob looked over to his left briefly before continuing. "We have a man who can stop this. He has a cure. We just have to get him to Washington. You don't have to do this, we can put the world back to how it was."
"Can't go back, Bob." Gareth lightly shook his head and this time did put the gag back in place. He looked over to Rick then and knelt down in front of him before pulling the cloth out of his mouth, but Rick didn't say anything. "Saw you go into the woods with a bag and came out without it. Had to pull my spotters back before we could go look for it. What was in it?" Rick only stared. "You hid it right? In case things went bad." Gareth looked over to the four dead bodies beside Glenn and then back to Rick. "Smart. Still... we'll find it, but it's too dangerous to go out their right now." He leant back a little and pulled out a knife.
My head was then suddenly being ripped forward as Gareth yanked me by the back of the neck with his left arm and held the knife up to point right at my eye. As Daryl made a grunting noise, starting to pull against his restraints again.
"What was in it?" He asked again. "I'm curious and it was a... big bag." Rick stared back in silence as Gareth sighed. "You really going to let me do this? Don't think I wont... she killed five of our people. I can understand why, but they were still liked around here. It's why I've got her at the head of the table, perfect view. So, I'll ask again... what's in the bag?"
"Well, let me take you out there. I'll show you."
"Not gonna happen." Gareth shook his head before pushing my face further to the blade. "This might though." You would think I'd close my eyes, but I couldn't seem to be able to. Daryl struggled more and Gareth's gaze flicked over to him. "Maybe I'm asking the wrong person, huh?"
"There's guns in it." Rick answered, paused a moment and then began an itemised list. "AK-47, 44 magnum, automatic weapons, night scope, there's a compound bow, and a machete with a-a red handle." Rick said in thought. "The letters KG carved into it... that's what I'm gonna use to kill you." Rick said confidently.
Gareth waited a moment and then began to smile, finding amusement in his threat before reaching forward and putting the gag back into place, tapping Rick on the shoulder and saying, "Thanks." He took a few steps backwards and looked over to his two men standing behind us. I let out a breath I didn't realise had been caught in my throat as I realised how fast my heart had been pounding. My torso double over a little as I stared down into the blood filled basin and then finally looked up. "You have two hours to get them on the dryers. Then we'll go back to public phase. Now's the time we can get messy, but we need to dial it all in before sundown."
"Got it."
"Yes, Sir." The men nodded.
The man with the baseball bat started to wind it up, ready for Glenn when a distant set of gun shots stopped everyone. Gareth pulled out their radio. "Hey, Chuck?" He asked into it. There was nothing before more gun fire. It was a distant rifle by the sounds of it, just one and then... an explosion.
The ground shook beneath my feet and I fell up against the blood filled tub and then slid along it until I hit the ground. It was loud and heavy and not a single person had stayed on their feet except for Glenn who was bent over the trough to steady himself.
"You stay here." Gareth told his other men as they began to recover and he headed for the door.
"These guys aren't going anywhere." One of them protested.
"Stay here until I know what's happening!" Gareth yelled back, running out the door.
"So we just sit here?" The men started to argue as I looked to Bob who had been the closest to me and scooted a little further over.
"Bob." I whispered. "Roll over the over way, there's a knife in my front pocket. I need you to grab it" My voice was so low I wasn't even sure if he could have heard it, but he did. His eyes went wide and he quickly rolled over, making it look like he was just looking around before he used his hands tied behind his back to blindly reach for my pocket. I shuffled a little and then his fingertips felt the hard object through my jeans and he pulled it out, beginning to cut away at the zip ties that held him.
I could hear Glenn and Daryl struggling against their ties and then I saw Rick, cutting away at his with the matching blade to the one I had given Bob, apparently being smart enough to put it in his back pocket or up a sleeve.
"Well, we have a job to do." One of the men said.
"You there, Gareth?" The other man spoke into his radio, ignoring his friend.
"He's busy."
"You smell the smoke? You heard the shots, he could be dead. The hell are we doing here, the whole place could be going up."
"You went on one round up and you blue protocol, we don't deal with security. That ain't our job. This is."
The other man was getting more frustrated, pacing back and forth in the room. Then I saw Rick's ties brake followed by Bob's. He jumped up, wasted no time in driving it into the neck of the calmer and bigger of the two men as Bob quickly scrambled to his knees and moved to untie my restraints. Rick ran for the second as I took the knife off Bob and moved straight to Daryl, beginning to cut through his binds, not looking at what I knew Rick was doing.
The second Daryls hands were free they whipped up to the gag and ripped it out before his right hand found its way to my left cheek and I smiled, quickly kissing his palm and moving on, not having much time for relief.
Glenn was last, him being the furthest, but when I saw his face I realised maybe he should have been untied first. He had been one swing of a bat way from death.
"You okay?" I asked him and he nodded as he ripped the gag from his mouth.
"Yeah."
We got to our feet and I turned back to the others who had already started looking about the room for more weapons. It was a butcher shop. There were cleavers and long blades and electric saws and various other random tools and blades that were not originally for the purpose of carving meat which was my guess as to why. There were two bodies lying about the room, dead and with limbs neatly sawn off.
"They've got problems." Rick was saying. "We've got a chance."
"It sounded like a bomb." Glenn said back.
"Sounds like a damn war." Daryl continued as he made it over to one of the metal tables and picked up a large wooden handled bowie knife with folded steel and a leather sheath. It was the kind that would have cost quite a bit back when currency was around. He looked over it a moment and then held it out to me to take as he picked up a less than impressive carving knife, shoving it into the holder at his belt where his knife was currently absent.
I undid one loop on my belt to fasten it on properly before we started to move out. Most of the weapons in that room weren't ideal. Rick had the long blade the man had been using to open throats like a slaughter house, Daryl had his carving knife and Bob another while Glenn grabbed the bat.
"What the hell are these people?" Bob asked.
"They ain't people." Daryl said back.
The next room we came to was worse. Parts of bodies were suspended from the ceiling on meat hooks like a game locker and carvings of meat were laid out on chopping boards.
"They're eating them." I said, just barely loud enough for the others to hear.
"Cross any of these people, you kill 'em." Rick responded. "Don't hesitate, they won't."
There were better knifes in this room. Daryl swapped his and Glenn grabbed one of his own. I slowly gravitated towards a torso that dangled from the ceiling, the blood run dry and the skin removed along with the head, arms and legs. But the shoulders were still there and in the flesh of the right one was a scar that ran deep. It was the only identifiable mark. It wouldn't have even been noticeable to most, but I could see where the flesh had been torn and healed once and my hand raised to run along the inch long mark.
"It's Martinez." I said, more to myself than the others, but they still looked over.
"How do you know?" Glenn asked.
"That's a scar from a bullet." I answered and waited a moment before continuing. "I shot him. At the prison, the first time. When they let the walkers through the fences." I looked up slightly, the only person in front of me being Rick. "He saved my life." I barely whispered, thinking on my run back to the prison for supplies. "Helped me burry my father... he didn't deserve this." I lightly shook my head.
Rick took a step towards me, placing a hand on my shoulder and giving it a light squeeze before walking past, but it was Daryl's hand on my waist that guided me away as we continued on. Daryl broke off a piece of pipe to use as a longer weapon while I pulled down one of the chains with hooks from the ceiling, feeling the weight and taking it with me along with a meat mallet.
We found our way to a back door with a glass window to look out of. Walkers were through the compound and a few had gathered around another train cart as people screaming on the inside had drawn them over.
"If we run we can get by them. Their distracted."
"We've got to let those people out." Glenn said back. There was silence. "That's still who we are." He said firmly. "It's got to be."
The doors opened and Daryl ran out first with me right behind him and then the other three. Daryl took the left and I took the right while the others ran for the train cart to free the people inside. Three walkers came towards me and I swung my butcher room morning star towards them, holding on tight to the chain as the ball of hooks obliterated the head of the first walker it came to and lodge itself into the head of the second. I stepped forward and smashed the head of the third in with the two sided meat tenderiser before yanking the hooks out of the skull of the no longer moving corpse.
When Glenn ripped open the heavy door a man came sprinting out. His hair was a mess, he hadn't cleaned himself in an unidentifiable amount of time and he appeared to have half lost his mind as he screamed, "We're the same!" He grabbed Glenn by the shoulders as he yelled before he pushed him back and he turned this time to Rick who also quickly shoved him away as he continued to yell, "We're them!"
He was the only one in the crate and he lasted all of 30 seconds before his shouting drew a walker right to his side. Glenn took out the walker with his bat, but he was already dead and Daryl quickly yanked Glenn backwards to take cover behind the train cart as a herd passed by.
"We've got to double back." Bob said.
"The cart is that way." Rick said. "If we go back, we don't know where we are."
"We don't really have a choice, do we?" Daryl said.
"We can take them." I nodded. "They're not tightly grouped, they're spaced out enough. Enough for five of us." But then a gun fired and the front line of walkers dropped dead.
"Wait here." Rick said, moving forward and taking cover behind a parked car. He disappeared out of sight, but there was a walker we could see coming up behind where he had hidden. Not wanting to take the chance, Daryl ran forward to take it out and then ducked down to hide with Rick. A group of Terminus people with automatics started to walk past, heading straight into the herd and taking them out. Five passed and then a sixth that was lagging behind. Rick jumped forward, stabbed the man in the throat, took his guns and open fired on the Terminus group that still had their backs to us, taking them out along with what was left of the herd.
We took off at a run, darting to the right to follow the path we knew led back to our train cart.
I'm getting so excited for Negan guys! Like so much! It feels so far away until I get up to him but argh! I shouldn't love him. But I do. Can't help it. Sue me. So scared for him this season but so happy I'm getting close to writing some Negan stuff. If you have any ideas for him please let me know, he's a huge motivation for all these updates at the moment.