MADISON'S POV.
I remain completely and utterly still as Jayden, Eugene and I are crushed together. The sound of hundreds of feet being dragged across the floor boards above us makes shivers rack up and down my body.
Adrenaline floods my system, it pumps and beats like it's trying to escape and the beads of nervous sweats that surface on my palms and forehead prove it. My muscles twitch as my body begs for me to move, to run, fast, but I can do nothing but lay here and pray we aren't found.
It's dark and I can see almost nothing, except a tiny light that shines through the crack on the floorboard, right where the door opens above us. It flickers as the walkers step over it.
I concentrate on Jayden's breathing, it's slow and steady, but almost too slow, as if he's trying hard to control it. It's not comforting at all.
"They were here." A soft dragged out whisper gives me goosebumps. The sound was almost lost in the loud thunder and for a second I'm not even sure if I really heard it.
"They were right here!" Another whisper confirms my previous thoughts. I feel Jayden stiffen next to me. Frustration builds up inside of me.
How could he be so stupid?
I thump him and he grunts lowly.
I place my finger over his lips, pleading with him to shut up.
"They can't be far!" Another whisper, it's different to the first, lower and more threatening.
I freeze when I hear the words because Jayden's lips didn't move an inch under my finger.
What the hell?
I know that wasn't Eugene, he's a shaking mess. He wouldn't dare open his mouth to speak. I remove my finger from his lips.
How could there be people up there? How have they not been mauled?
Jayden leans even closer to me, closer than I thought possible considering his ribs are definitely leaving permanent damage against my own. His lips are practically touching my ear.
He waits for another crack of thunder before he speaks.
"Did you hear that?"
I nod.
He shrugs, and I know it's his way of speaking to me.
What was that?
I respond by shaking my head, I don't know.
We wait in silence for a long time while the mass of the herd passes through the small shack and out the far door. All the while, the air is thick with fear that we'll be found. It could happen so easily. All it takes is just one foot to trip over the door handle, opening the door and revealing us. It could all be over in seconds.
I pray that we get out of here and I can go home to Kara and put her to bed, safe and sound. Instead, she has no idea where her mom is or when she's coming back. Other questions flood my mind.
Where are Daryl, Tara and Fangs? Did they make it home to get help? Are they stuck too?
The more I think about all the possibilities the more crazy I go sitting here, doing nothing. The damp from my soaked hair and bottoms would've given me hyperthermia by now if not for the heat coming from the three of us.
Finally, after what feels like literally hours, the room above us goes silent and the light at the door stop flickering, indicating that nothing is walking over us anymore. We stay perfectly still for another while before one of us finally speaks up.
"Are they gone?" Eugene mumbles.
"Should we check?" I whisper but nobody moves.
It takes me a while to pluck the courage to request something I really don't want to do.
"I'll check."
Jayden immediately grabs my hands and pulls me close to him as I begin to move. We both stay silent but I'm so confused.
"I don't think we're alone." He whispers to me.
The voices, is been wondering about them too. If I'm not the only one who heard them then I'm not crazy, somebody is out there.
I take a deep breath and move slowly. The boys stay quiet which leads me to believe that they aren't going to stop me this time.
My muscles ache as I move into an awkward semi-lying-down-semi-crouched position with my head squished against the door. I slip out the knife that's been cozily nestled onto my thigh and hold it up, ready for what's on the other side of this door.
I take a deep breath before slowly lifting my head and the door along with it. I creek the door open just wide enough for my eyes to peer out over the floorboards. The shack is empty and the hay and glass have been scattered all over the floor. A wide, wet, muddy trail leads from the front door, straight across to the second door opening.
"It's clear. Let me get out first and check the place for the herd before you help Eugene out." I whisper as I open the door fully, climbing out and ignoring the pain in my legs from finally moving.
I welcome the cool air smacking me in the face as I stand to my feet. Jayden hands me my bag and arrows and I clutch my bow in my hand.
"I'll be back in a minute." I promise as I close the door back over and cover it with the straw again.
I peer out the back door only to see that the sky is dark, darker than it was before and I know it's not just from the storm because I can see a litter of stars sprinkled across the night sky.
How long were we stuck in there?
Horror sinks in as I realize we've been missing longer than we thought. What if people come looking for us and get caught by the herd? I step outside of the back door and quickly load my bow, squinting in the darkness around me. In the distance, not too far away, I see the herd.
It's not a safe enough distance away that I'd feel comfortable getting Eugene out of here. That would take a long time and the night doesn't help, we can't see anything. Maybe we should just stay the night here and wait until the morning when it's safer. Staying in that hidden door is daunting but not as daunting as the idea of being out here, dragging Eugene for miles with nothing but each other to fend off that herd.
I stand for a while, waiting for the herd to disappear. The wind is still strong but at least the thunder has stopped and there's been no sign of lighting. I glance back at the herd, struck that they're still clearly in sight, more so now than before.
I take a few steps forward again and squint into the distance.
That's odd, it looks like the herd is coming towards me, like it turned around.
I wait another ten seconds and then it hits me that they did turn around, they're coming back.
"Shit."
I rush back into the shack and open the hidden door.
"They're coming back."
"What?" Eugene gasps.
"They're coming back and we don't have much time. They've seen me."
"I bet if I run now, I'll beat the herd. I could get help at home." Jay interjects.
"It's too dangerous." I shake my head.
"We don't have any other choice Mads, we're trapped!"
Help, a lot of help from all the communities is our only way out of this situation.
Jayden stands and pushes past me before I have time to agree or disagree. I guess he's not giving me the choice.
"I've made up my mind. We need help Madison."
I nod and shove my bag into his arms.
"You may need it, just in case."
He closes the trap door again and covers it like before.
"Keep hidden." He whispers before sprinting full force out the door.
I don't stop to watch him run away, instead I go back to check on the herd only to find it almost at the house, only a yard away.
How did it travel so fast?
I clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from making any noise from the shock.
Instead, I turn to the tree right next to me and climb. I climb as fast as I can, pulling myself up with each branch that will support my weight. I'm unsure if the herd seen me but I do know it was way too risky to bring it back into the shack and risk Eugene's life.
The herd approaches and I settle in the tree, perched on a thick, supportive branch as I watch it gradually move towards the shack. I stay still and silent as it passes beneath me. I hear the footsteps drag loudly across the wooden floorboards and I pity Eugene who's stuck in there all alone. He's not the same scaredy-cat geek he was many years ago, he toughened up and learned how to defend himself but that doesn't make this situation any easier.
I look down below me again and from the corner of my eye I notice a small group of walkers that stopped dead in their tracks while the rest of the herd brushes past them to continue into the shack.
They don't move, they just stand there and one even looks up at me, as if teasing me. I nearly fall out of the tree from the uncharacteristic exchange between us. I grab the tree trunk as I peer down again. The look in its eyes is not the same oblivious, brainwashed, hunger-stricken look that I'm used to seeing, instead its eyes gleam playfully as if it knows I'm the prey, hiding from them and they are the hunter.
Suddenly, something small smacks off the side of the tree, the noise echoing into the forest.
What the hell?
Again, another smack. This time I see it. It's an acorn, this one hit the branch.
The next one comes quickly after, except this time I don't see it, I feel it. I feel it hit the side of face and my hand immediately shoots up to sooth it at the same time a soft gasp escapes my lips.
When I look down more walkers have stopped, either the noise of the acorns or my gasp causing them to gather around the tree. I messed up big time.
"Shit!" I whisper. My eyes scan the area for someone who could've thrown those acorns but it's dark so after waiting a few minutes, I give up with a sigh.
I lie back against the bark of the tree and feel the soft vibrations run up it from the walkers clawing at it from the bottom. A nervous feeling grows in the pit of my stomach and settles there to taunt me as time passes. I only hope that Jayden comes back soon with help. We're both gonna need it.
CARL'S POV.
"Go through this with me one more time." I ask Jayden as we rush to load the car with machinery at the gate.
He pants, still out of breath from running here. Luckily, he found a car on his travels back but it only got him so far before he had to run the rest of the way back.
"Daryl, Tara and Fangs got separated from us by this huge herd. The biggest I've ever seen. I mean.... seriously, I've never seen anything like it. The way they moved together, they were like magnets. They were quick too, usually quick. They'd disappear just as quickly as they appeared."
Michonne, Dad, Kai, Jayden and I all get into the car in a hurry and dad turns the key in the ignition and immediately pushes down on the pedal, making us fly back into our seats as the car takes off. I order my brain to function as Jayden continues the story, I demand it to start thinking of solutions instead of focusing solely on this crazy-making circle of anxiety.
What happened to her? Is she safe? Is she alive? Is she hurt?
Hundreds of possibilities flood my mind and none of them result in a happy ending.
"Anyways Eugene hurt his foot and we just about made it to this old shack and thank god, there was a little underground cupboard thing, almost like a trap door. We hid in there for hours apparently, the herd took forever to pass. I think maybe it walked over us three or four times without stopping."
"That's not possible, they should've just kept walking, like usual." Michonne shakes her head.
"That's what I thought at first but, I don't think this is a normal herd."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we heard them talking...whispering actually."
I throw him a funny glance, as does almost everybody else.
"Look I know how it sounds but-"
"You were stuck there for a long time maybe you just started hearing things." Dad suggests.
Jayden shakes his head with certainty. "No. They were whispering. Madison and Eugene heard it too."
We sit in silence, processing this.
"It's not possible. No way." Michonne shakes her head again.
"There was a time that we would've said the dead coming back to eat us was impossible." Jay points out.
"Yeah, but this is just...."
I look out the window, watching as the trees speed by us and when I look back they're already miles behind us. I knew something went wrong when Kai collected the girls after school. He dropped them off at Jenna's and came straight to me. He said Madison had left for the day and was supposed to be back by then. I knew in that moment that something was wrong but nobody knew where exactly they went or what to do.
I'd sat up for hours until the dark settled and even after I blatantly lied to the girls when putting them to bed, insisting that Madison would be back soon. I still sat up with Kai, Michonne, Jenna and Dad.
The minute Jayden burst through the door my knees almost gave out. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think...
He poured gasoline onto the spark of fear inside me, igniting it into a fully-blown uncontrollable inferno.
"Then what?" Kai urges the story further, pulling me back to reality.
Jay shrugs. "I ran to get help before they came back again."
"You just left them there?" Kai freaks.
"When the herd was coming back?" I snap.
"There was no other option. They're not getting out of there without help." Jay insists.
"Then its a good thing I called backup." Dad shakes a walkie-talkie in his hand before tossing it back to us. I catch it and shove it into my bag.
"Turns out Eugene's satellite project worked after all." Dad explains.
"Who's coming?" Kai asks anxiously.
"The kingdom, Ezekiel, Jerry and Carol, a few others I think. Sydney and some others from the Oceanside and the Hilltop too."
"Maggie?" I ask.
Dad nods. "And Jesus and Enid."
"This is the field we pulled into to set up the satellite." Jay points to the right and dad makes a swift turn, not loosing any speed. We all slide to the right in the backseats, squeezing me up against the door. We pass the car Madison and the others used earlier, abandoned in the muck. Dad continues on through the field until he reaches the tree line where we find the others from Hilltop, the kingdom and Oceanside, waiting for us.
We hop out of the car quickly and shut the doors quietly behind us. We don't need to draw attention to ourselves, especially if that herd is near. Each of us grab a machine gun from the trunk of the car and start into the forest.
"Wait! Do you hear that?" Carol stops us.
Maggie cocks her head to the side and holds up a finger.
In the distance we can hear some faint barking. Familiar barks.
We quickly follow the direction of the barks and it takes us a while to find them but finally we do.
We practically run face first into both Tara and Daryl.
"We couldn't get the damn mutt to shut up." Daryl growls.
"Well, it's a good thing it didn't, we wouldn't have found you." Ezekiel points out.
Both Tara and Daryl notice Jayden with us and panic quickly controls their features.
"Eugene and Madison!"
"We're trying to find them right now." Michonne explains.
"And we're wasting time!" Jay snaps angrily.
He runs into the trees and we all run after him, following him with every bend and turn he takes, weaving between the trees until we're at a safe distance of the shack. It looks old and unstable, I'm not sure how the wind didn't blow it to the ground.
"I don't see any walkers." Sydney notes.
"Wait, look for their inside." Jesus points through the door and on the other side there is a huge gathering of walkers huddled out the back.
"Oh no!" Jayden's face pales and my stomach drops from the time of his voice.
Jayden runs to the side of the house, as do we. I squeeze to the top of the group to peer over the side of the house at the herd. Jayden was right, I've never seen this many before. They're gathered around a tall tree, scraping and scratching it desperately. Before I look up I know she's caught up there. When is she not in a tree.
To confirm my horror I squint up through the darkness to find Madison perched on a sturdy branch on the tree. She leans against the trunk and her eyes are scrunched closed. I'd almost think she was asleep only for the stiffness of her shoulders and the knife clutched in her small hand.
I hear a soft click next to me as Kai begins to aim his gun. Several other clicks are heard around me as everyone loads their guns and I aim my own. Madison's eyes snap open and she gawks down at us in relief. We spread out and surround the herd that's already begun to notice us.
Dad shoots first and then the rest of us follow, taking down the herd that has seemed to divide in half in only a few seconds. Some scattering and separating into the woods.
That's strange. Something isn't right here.
We concentrate on what's left of the herd, surrounding the tree. Between all four communities the herd is demolished within a few minutes.
That was the biggest herd I'd ever seen and the sound of them was like a million bees swarming around us. Their groans turning into one big, loud buzz.
Madison scrambles to the ground and Kai pushes past me, dropping his gun to the ground and replacing it with Madison in his arms. She throws her arms around him and buries her face into his neck. Her eyes squeeze shut.
"I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay." I hear her promise him over and over and I can't help but feel a strong pang of jealously. Part of me forgot how angry she is at me and another part reminded me constantly, not allowing me a second of peace as I wondered if she was safe or not, alive or not and how we left things on bad terms.
Madison doesn't waste a minute as she pulls away from their embrace and rushes inside the shack.
She kicks away some straw on the ground and bends to pull a section of the floorboards apart. A door, in fact. We move inside to help her aid a shaking Eugene.
"It's okay now. They're gone." She promises him.
Daryl, Jesus and Michonne help Madison lift him carefully from the hidden door. Madison's face scrunches up in concentration as she grips Eugene under his shoulder and his other arm, hoisting him upwards with help.
Her hair and clothes are damp and I can tell she's still cold by the goosebumps on her arms and the stiffness still in her shoulders.
I peer inside the small hole in the ground amazed at how they all fit inside together.
Eugene's face holds a shocked expression. "All of them?" He asks in disbelief.
Madison just tilts her head and shrugs. "Most of them."
Eugene leans forward to whisper something into her ear. As he does she nods and her eyes dart towards Jayden. I can tell by the way his face changes that he knows exactly what they're talking about.
"What?" I murmur but to my frustration, they remain silent.
"Well, they're not all gone." Carol breaks the tension.
"Did you see the way they broke off like that and just walked away?" Maggie comments.
"And so quickly too." Enid agrees.
"It's like they just evaporated into thin air, that's not normal." Dad agrees.
Suddenly it clicks what they were whispering about.
"No, it wasn't normal." Madison mumbles lowly to herself.
"Well, we can't just let them go. They're dangerous and the kids have already gotten too brave, going outside the walls by themselves. I'm not risking the rest of that herd coming back home." Michonne amends.
Dad nods with her.
"I agree. We'll help." Ezekiel adds.
As Daryl stands to start for the door Eugene grabs his arm, stopping him in his tracks.
"No!"
Daryl shrugs Eugene's arm off him but pauses curiously. "What?"
"They were whispering." Eugene's voice comes out small and strangled and it sends shivers down my spine.
"Whispering? No, Eugene, you were all locked down there for a long time, you're injured and sleep deprived. I'm sure you were just hearing things." Kai dismissed him.
"I heard them too." Madison speaks up.
Everyone's head turns to her and then to Jayden.
"So did I." Jayden finalizes.
Daryl scoffs. "Didn't peg you for a crazy Mads."
Jayden's head snaps to Daryl and his volume of his voice shocks me. I've never seen Jay loose his cool. He's always been so chill.
"WE'RE NOT CRAZY!"
I can understand why that comment affected him.
"We heard what we heard. There's no way it was all in our heads if all three of us heard it." He adds.
"It was like... they knew what was going on. Like they weren't really...dead." Madison struggles to find words to explain it to us.
"The whole herd was moving through the shack but a group of them just...stayed back, right at the bottom of the tree and they stared right up at me, like they knew I was there the whole time. Then something or someone threw acorns at me." She explains.
I shake my head. "There must be people around here messing with you."
"You'd have to be insane to go near a herd that big just to mess with someone. It was the walkers. I know it was."
Everyone just looks back and forth to each other in disbelief.
"I know you think we're crazy but we're telling the truth. This shouldn't be happening but it is." Eugene announces.
"Not possible." Michonne shakes her head again.
"At one time, we all thought that the dead coming back to eat us was impossible. Is it really so shocking that maybe after all this time they've started to evolve, like us ?" He continues.
Nobody answers.
"Uh... I, I think Enid, Jerry And I will bring Eugene home while the rest of you finish off that herd. He needs to see a doctor... for his leg, I mean." Sydney clarifies.
"Yeah, that's probably best. Take our car, we'll find a ride home with the others" Maggie tosses her the car keys.
"Right, lets go find them quickly." Dad starts for the door and the rest of us follow. I stay back to catch Madison before she leaves. I grab her arm and she turns back to look at me.
"Are you okay?"
She rips her hand from mine. "Fine."
The coldness in her voice felt like daggers in the gut. She's still angry and I don't know how to make it right between us again.
She disappears out the door and I follow behind her.
Daryl leads the group with Dad and Maggie, tracking the herd easily until after fifteen minutes of hurried walking we come across a tall steel gate and brick walls surrounding it.
I peer over the wall and squint through a massive amount of fog but it's useless I can't see a thing. However, I can hear everything. The buzzing is back as the herd moves eerily behind the walls. How they got through them is what shocks me the most.
"It's a graveyard." Jayden states.
"How can you tell?"
He points to a cross on the tall steel gates. Large letters are engraved into the steel to read;
'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust'
"Oh."
We all look through the gates but we can't see far because of the fog.
"Who pissed off Mother Nature. First rain, then thunder and now a shit tonne of fog." Daryl grunts.
"Boost me up." Michonne instructs, ready at the brick wall.
Rick and Daryl hoist her up and she sits at the top and bends to help Carol up next, then Maggie, then Kai, then Jesus and Ezekiel. The list is endless. I wait until near enough last to be pulled over the wall and then bend to help dad and Daryl over too. Everyone waits at the other side of the wall with their weapons out.
It's cold and dark and I can practically feel the nerves radiating off of everyone.
Where the hell are we and who is in here with us ?
"Let's go." Dad moves first.
We feel our way around the darkness until we find a huge tombstone that's three times my height. We hide behind it as Jesus and Maggie peer around it.
"Look, right there." He points and I lean over to get a better look.
I see the herd gathered together in a compact group. Only a few strays wobble our way.
"They're here." A dark,low whisper is echoed around us and I stiffen.
"They're here." The words become louder as more voices join in.
Holy shit!
The whole herd of walkers turn on the spot and stare directly at us before moving toward us quickly.
"Kill them." The whisper fades into the night as the once compact group moves like a routined dance into position, surrounding us.
"Believe us now?" Jayden whispers.
Everyone nods.