Help, I'm Alive

"Are you guys okay? What happened?" Andrea asked Daryl and me as we entered the house. The majority of our group stood within the living room like they were waiting for somebody.

"We should be asking you that," Daryl answered, referring to Randall.

"Rick and Shane, they went after Randall," Lori spoke up, "Randall escaped and attacked Shane from behind."

"Ran off with his gun as well," Dale added in, he didn't seem too convinced by the story.

Daryl scoffed, "Yeah well, we found Randall," Daryl looked over to me, "he's a walker now."

"Did you find the walker that bit him?" Herschel asked.

"Weird thing is, he wasn't bit," I answered. Everyone looked quite confused.

"His neck was broke," Daryl said.

"So he fought back against Shane then," Maggie offered up the answer.

"The thing is, all the tracks I could see out there were right on top of each other and Shane ain't no tracker so he didn't come up behind him like ya said. No, they were together," Daryl explained. The story that Shane had told the group hadn't been adding up from what we saw out in the woods. To be honest I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Shane had killed him on purpose.

Just then we heard a shot come from outside. It came from the direction of the paddocks, the noise once again echoed over the rolling slopes like it had been fired right beside us.

"What the hell was that?" T-Dog asked the question we were all thinking.

"Only one shot, they must have taken down a walker," Herschel said with reason. We all silently waited to hear for anymore, but there was nothing.

Lori then stepped up to Daryl, her hands pressed together in a praying position, "Could you please go back out there and try and find Rick and Shane and figure out what the hell is goin' on," she pleaded.

"You got it," Daryl agreed for once. He sauntered off towards the door and I quickly followed behind.

"Are you actually going back out there? After what just happened?" I asked. I didn't want him to go out again, not while it was this dark and we didn't know what the hell was going on. He didn't respond though and continued to walk out onto the porch. "Daryl, listen to me- oh my God," I stumbled on my sentence as I looked out to the surrounding fields. Daryl stopped in his tracks, locking his eyes with what stood before us.

The largest herd of walkers I had ever seen littered the paddocks, limping up behind where the barn sat, just on the outskirts of the farm. The sheer velocity of them was more than enough to take down an entire city of people, they piled up against the paddock fences, bundling together and forcing their way through to get to us. My heart leaped to my throat causing my breath to get stuck there. From where we stood on the porch they looked like ants, but their chorus of groans and gurgles rang in my ears as over two hundred walkers were headed our way. I'm assuming by now some people had looked out the living room windows as they walked out and joined us on the porch.

"Holy shit," Glenn muttered out.

"Patricia, kill the lights," Herschel ordered.

"I'll get the guns," Andrea said.

"Maybe they'll pass us just like the herd on the highway, should we just go inside?" Glenn asked.

"Unless there's a tunnel in the basement I don't know about a herd that size will rip the house down," Daryl responded. Everyone began to run around, acting fast. Although walkers weren't the most mobile, they moved fast when they smelled flesh.

"What do we do about Rick and Shane-"

"Carl's gone," Lori cut me off, running back out from the house. She was in a panic.

"What?" Daryl said.

"He was upstairs, I can't find him anymore." She was breathing heavily, stressed.

"Maybe he's hiding," Glenn tried to calm her down.

"He's supposed to be upstairs, I'm not leavin' without my boy," she cried.

"We're not, we're gonna look again, we're gonna find him," Carol now began to panic, reliving the Sophia situation all over again.

Andrea then brought out the bag of guns and Herschel helped hand them out. I immediately went to grab more rounds for my Glock. Once I shoved four or five in my pocket I needed to find my crowbar, I wasn't going into this fight without it. The herd was moving fast and we were still missing three people so we were bound to have to kill some of the walkers before we could even think about leaving. I ran into the dining room where I had left it, passing Glenn on the way, he had been grabbing anything he could from the kitchen and shoving it in his bag.

"Glenn," I called out, stopping him mid-run, "do something for me?" I asked, he nodded his head, listening, "don't be a hero this time. You're always the one put in the most danger, just please be the person to run the other way for once," I said, "I want us both to make it out of this."

He didn't say anything, instead, he flashed me a small smile and wrapped me up in a tight hug.

"Let's go."

"Okay have we found Carl yet? Are we good to go?" I asked as Glenn and I emerged from the house.

"You can go if you want," Herschel responded.

"You gonna take 'em all on?" Daryl asked.

"We have guns, we have cars," Herschel said, loading his shotgun.

"We'll kill as many as we can," Andrea nodded her head, "then we use the cars to lead the rest of them off the farm." They actually thought we were going to be able to save the farm. Two hundred plus walkers came our way and they wanted to fight through them all.

"You serious?" Daryl asked, having some sense.

"This is my farm, I'll die here," Herschel ended the conversation, walking down to the front lawn, ready to take on the herd.

"Alright, it's as good of a night as any," Daryl answered and my head shot up. I watched the people around me, all of them gearing up for the fight, their mind's made up already. That left me with only one choice, these were my people now. "Red!" Daryl called out to me as he hopped onto his motorcycle. I raised my head to look at him, accustomed to the nickname now. "You good?" he asked. I could tell that he wasn't just asking if I was okay and coping with what laid before us, but he wanted to know if I was going to be alright even with him gone.

"I'm good," I smiled as best I could, nodding my head.

At ease, he then sped off to make his way out to where the walkers were. They had made their way well past the barn by now. Jimmy took the campervan, Andrea and T-Dog went together in the truck, and Glenn and Maggie stuck together in the SUV. They were going to attempt to corral them while killing as many as they could. I decided to stay back with the majority of the Greene family along with Carol, Lori, and Dale, they were still searching for Carl. I set up a sniper rifle in the front living room window, helping Herschel who stood just outside.

"The barn's on fire, they're being drawn to it, maybe Rick set it," Patricia said, drawing all our attention to the barn. I could see the doors swung wide open, flames consuming the inside and just beginning to peek out of the shafts of the roof. Multiple bodies of walkers dropped to the floor as they walked in, their skin being burnt to a crisp.

"I can't find him, I can't find him!" Lori came running down the stairs, Carol close behind her.

"Maybe he went outside," Carol said.

"What do I do!" she shouted. She was losing it and I couldn't blame her. We were in the middle of a warzone and she hadn't a clue where her only son was.

"He was here," Carol cried, "he must have run off to look for Rick or maybe look for Randall himself."

"Maybe he's at the barn," Patricia spoke up.

They were distracting me, I wasn't focusing my attention on those who were outside anymore, but instead on Lori's cry for help. There was nothing I could do there though, but I could help keep the rest of the group alive. I looked through my scope, taking a deep breath in and looking around for each car's location. I spotted the blue truck speeding along with one of the fences, Andrea was hanging out of the window shooting down as many walkers as she could at the speed they were going. Without hesitation I let off my first bullet, gunning down a walker they were about to hit square on. T-Dog did not swerve away nearly in time and the damage it would have done to the car could have been fatal.

I scanned the vicinity some more, trying to see if I could spot Daryl. It was taking longer than I would have liked, I could feel my heart rate begin to rise. Finally, I spotted him, he was sitting on his bike just on the outskirts of the farm, shooting down walkers just on the other side of the fence. He seemed to be alright. My attention now landed on the burning barn. I could see the campervan at a halt just to the side of the barn, it was completely swarmed by walkers, most of them piled high in the doorway trying to get to something. The copious amount of blood splattered on the windshield told me that Jimmy didn't make it. Then I saw something… movement, movement that looked way too swift to be a walker.

"Lori!" I called out, she came running. "It's Carl and Rick, I see them," I said, not taking my eye off of the scope, I watched their every move. Rick was currently climbing down from the back of the van, shooting down any walker nearby, Carl followed close behind.

"Where?" she asked, looking out the window. I didn't answer just yet, instead, I focused on killing any walkers I could, making a path for the two of them. I did the best I could before they disappeared on the other side of the barn.

"They're at the barn, they were the ones who set the fire," I finally answered her, "they're okay," I reassured her, finally breaking eye contact with my scope and looking up had her. She held her chest, relief washing over her face. When I brought my attention back to the fields was when I truly realized just how fucked we were. Looking through the scope in small sections didn't make it seem so bad, but looking at it from a distance, they were everywhere. It was like for every walker we killed three more would walk out from the woods. There was no corralling them, we would run out of ammo before we even made a dent.

"We can't stay here, we gotta go!" Dale yelled, looking out the window at all the walkers, they were closing in on us and fast.

"He's right, get your stuff," I said, grabbing my backpack with my crowbar and checking my pockets to make sure I still had my rounds. I was good. I ran outside towards the last car left for us. "Herschel, come on we gotta go!" I yelled as he continued to fire shots, one after another, he wasn't missing a beat. He refused to listen to me, he wasn't bluffing when he said he would die here. "Herschel, now!" I screamed even louder. The rest of the girls and Dale ran behind me, making their way around the side of the house to the car. I wasn't prepared to leave Herschel behind though, I understood he wanted to die on this farm, but not like this. I stood beside him, firing off rounds at any walker he missed and ventured too close. They were dropping like flies around us, but there were still way too many to ever get ahead of it.

Screeching shrills coming from the direction of where the girls and Dale ran caught my attention. I could hear Patricia crying out for mercy as she was attacked by a group of walkers. I was stuck in a battle of war with myself, I couldn't decide fast enough if I should leave to help them or continue to help Herschel. Lori could stand on her own, but as for the rest of them, they needed me. I shot down a couple more walkers within a couple of feet from Herschel and made my choice.

I ran off in the direction of the car. There was a small herd of their own clustered on this side of the house. My stomach churned as I ran by the pile of walkers mauling away at Patricia's body, thankfully her screams had stopped now. Lori had taken Beth to the car, but Carol had been separated somehow. She was screaming and crying over by the shed, her back to it with a log swinging in her hands. From where I was I had no way to get to her in time, the walkers were crowding me. Everything from there on seemed to happen so fast. As I shot down my own set of walkers to make a pathway, I watched as Dale selflessly rushed over to where Carol was. Dale only managed to shoot two of them before one latched onto his arm, ripping off his flesh like it was a band-aid. I could see his muscle stringing from the walker's mouth as a second one sunk its teeth into his neck.

"Dale!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was angry now, we were losing too many people and I had no idea where the rest of the group was now or if they were even alive. I reloaded my gun with another round and sent bullets flying, one after another. Shooting down three more walkers within only a few feet of Carol, she finally dropped her log.

Just as I was about to reach out for her she jumped back from me, "Look out!" she screamed and ran to her left just out of my reach.

I reacted quickly to her warning and spun around, there was a walker standing face to face with me, grabbing at me with his claws. I raised my gun under its chin and shot it from under its head. Its skull exploded from how close I was and its body toppled over on top of me, spending me to the ground. It landed directly on me, sending all the air out of my body. Just then I heard our car's engine rev up, they thought it had got me, they thought I was dead. I tried to scream out to them, but the walker's body had knocked all the air out of my lungs. I watched as they sped off, the red tail lights disappearing into the distance. I am alive and they left me here.