digging graves// rick grimes x OC//

Cherokee Rose Part 3

   Dale and Winona approach the well, T-Dog speaks, hunched over a wheelbarrow, "I'm not weak and I'm not a coward."
    "I never said you were," the older man replies.
    "I don't think that of you, T," Winona reassures.
    "No, what I said on the highway—" he scratches his head, "I don't know what that was, where it came from. That wasn't me," T-Dog begins pumping the well, "If it's okay, I'd rather you guys never told anybody about that stuff I said."
   Dale and Winona stop and look at the man, the older man speaks, "What stuff?"
   Winona continues once T-Dog pauses and looks at them, "We couldn't get a word out of you all day."
   T-Dog smiles and lets out a light chuckle. He goes back to pumping, "Say, man, you think there's a snowball's chance we'll actually find that little girl?"
   "For the first time in my life I'm betting on the snowball," Dale answers, Winona hums in approval.
   "Yeah," T-Dog agrees, "Me too." Dale furrows his brows in confusion and begins waking closer to the well. T-Dog continues talking to Winona, "Do whatever we have to. I don't care if I have to comb the woods like Rambo or fetch a pail of water. Everyone kicks in, does their part. Am I right?"
   Winona laughs, "I would pay to see that and you are," she then notices Dale crouches down at the well, "Everything okay, Pops?"
   Dale doesn't say anything as he stands back up. T-Dog keeps speaking grabbing a ladle of water and bringing it to his lips, "Do your part, don't complain. That's what I always—"
   However, before he could take a sip, Dale knocks it out of his hands. T-Dog and Winona look at him confused, he speaks, "I wouldn't drink that if I were you." He glances to the broken cover over the well, T-Dog and Winona both realizing what he meant.
   "Oh shit..." Winona exhales.
——
   Bringing over a small group to check out the situation within the well, Winona becomes wary of the solutions. The growling of a bloated walker echoed throughout the well until it reached the ears of the survivors above. Dale shines a light onto the walker, "Looks like we've got us a swimmer."
   It's wrinkled skin covered its body as it grasped the walls, trying to grab at the people overlooking it. "How long do you think it's been down there?" Glenn wonders.
   "Long enough to grow gills... gross," Winona replies with a shudder.
   "We can't leave it down there. God knows what it's doing to the water," Lori states.
   "We got to get it out," Shane commands. 
   "How? We can't reach it from here," Winona questions.
    "Easy," T-Dog answers, "Put a bullet in its head. I'll get a rope."
    Maggie becomes defensive, "Woah woah, guys. No."
   Glenn looks at her with confusion written across his face, "Why not? It's a good plan."
   "It's a stupid plan," Andrea spits out, "If that thing hasn't contaminated the water yet, blowing its brains out will finish the job."
   Winona shakes her head, "It might be worse to shoot it, but I mean how can we expect that this water isn't contaminated already?"
   "Nah, Andrea's right," Shane shakes his head, "Like she said, we can't risk it, we need to get it out."
   "So it has to come out alive?" T-Dog asks.
   "So to speak," Shane replies.
   "How do we do that?" Glenn speaks.
——
    Squatting on the ground, Rick looks at a map that Hershel begins to explain. He points out landmarks, "The interstate where you broke down is here. There's your creek. My farm is here," Hershel gets up, "We're looking out that way, south-southeast."
   Absorbing the information, Rick looks over the map, "We missed this branch of the creek entirely.  If she went that direction, she'd be miles from where we looked."
   Hershel stops, "Rick, take a moment. Come look." Rick listens and walks to where the older man is standing. The view of cascading forests and ongoing fields lay in front of them. "That's something, isn't it?" Hershel asks, "It's good to pause for an occasional reminder."
   "Of what?"
   "Whatever comes to mind. For me it's often God. No thoughts on that?"
   Rick didn't want to admit it, but the first thing that popped into his head was what Winona would think of this view, how she'd look with the excitement that shines in her eyes, or how at peace she would be with the breeze running through her hair and a gentle smile laid across her face. He realized his thoughts and shook his head, turning to face the older man, "Last time I asked God for a favor and stopped to admire a view my son got shot. I try not to mix it up with the almighty anymore. Best we stay out of each other's way."
   "Lori told me your story— how you were shot, the coma. Yet you came out of it somehow. You did not feel God's hand in yours?"
   Rick scowls, "At that moment? No, I did not. Winona was there taking care of me, not the Lord."
   "She might've been there but the Lord was too. In all the chaos you found your wife and boy and. Then he was shot and he survived. That tells you nothing?"
   "It tells me God's got a strange sense of humor," Rick ends it at that and walks back towards the map.
——
   The group decides to lower a chunk of meat down towards the well walker to distract it to try and get a rope around it to pull it up. "He's not going for it," Dale points out.
   "Maybe 'cause a canned ham don't kick and scream when you try to eat it," T-Dog mentions.
   "He's right. There's a reason the dead didn't come back to life and start raiding our cupboards," Lori jokes.
   "We need live bait," Andrea declares, looking over at Glenn with a smirk.
   Winona pulls Glenn behind her and gets up into Andrea's face, "What. The. Actual. Hell?! Are you actually thinking of using Glenn to be bait? You cannot be serious," she crosses her arms and stands her ground, "No way in hell am I gonna let that happen."
   Andrea gets pissed off, "Get out of my face."
   "No. This is bullshit. You guys always decide Glenn will be the one to do risky shit."
   "Well why don't you do it, 'hero'?" Andrea rolls her eyes.
   "Maybe I will. Or better yet—you were the one who thought of the 'great idea' why don't you? Or are you too scared to actually go through with it?" Winona throws back. Andrea scoffs making a disgusted face towards the woman. Winona's lips form a tight line and she curtly nods, "Yeah. That's exactly what I thought."
   Shane steps forward, "Okay, ladies let's break it up."
   Glenn puts a hand on her shoulder, face red with embarrassment, "Wi, it's okay. I can do it."
   Winona's expression softens, "I know you can, but I don't want you dying to prove a point."
   "I'll be fine, I promise."
   "You know you can't promise that."
   "Hey, I'm a glass half-full kinda guy, remember?" he grins and nods towards Shane. Glenn lowers himself on the ledge of the well while Shane begins to try the rope around Glenn's legs and waist. His nerves begin to surface, "Have I mentioned that I really like your new haircut? You have a nice shaped head."
   Winona stands nearby pacing, "Guys, I fucking hate this plan."
   "Don't worry about it, Bud," Shane directs towards Glenn, "We're gonna get you out here in one piece."
   "Living piece," Glenn says.
   "That living part is important," Winona chimes in.
   The rest go over to the rope and hold on to it. "Nice and slow please," Glenn requests.
    "We got you," Andrea says, Winona rolls her eyes at the blonde.
   Maggie stands apart from the group with her arms crossed, "Oh, you people are crazy."
   "You want to get it out of your well or not?" Shane asks back.
   Dale looks over to the farm girl, "Give us an eye there, Maggie." She walks over, Glenn looking back as she shakes her head at him. He begins to lower himself down.
   Holding the flashlight that Lori had handed him, he shines it onto the swimmer below. "Doing okay?" Maggie asks.
   Glenn looks back up at her, "Yup, doing great," as he looks down he talks under his breath, "Living the dream." He grabs the noose to try to get it around the walker, but can't reach it yet.
   "Little lower. Little more," Maggie speaks.
   The group lowers him, slowly, a bit more, but as expected, something is bound to go wrong. The pump, that the rope was wrapped around, begins to come out of the ground due to the pulling against it. Losing the slack, that kept Glenn a safe distance away from the walker, he drops down further into the well and much closer to the danger. Everyone begins shouting to grab the rope before it falls all the way down the well. T-Dog latches onto the pump and everyone attempts to hold on to the rope dragging behind. "Get me out of here!" Glenn screams as the walker tries to grip onto him. T-Dog braces his legs against the well to try to keep the pump from falling in, everyone helping him. Winona can hear her close friend sobbing out screams, yelling at the walker to get away. Shane is finally able to gain some slack to begin pulling up the man.  They were all shouting to pull the rope, Winona being one of the first to stand and start trying to yank Glenn back up.
   At last, Glenn clutches onto the pole at the top of the well, Winona running over to him and snatching him away from the death pit, "Oh God are you okay?!" Hunched over, he attempts to catch his breath, while Winona rubs his back.
   Dale sighs, "Back to the drawing board."
   Glenn slowly gets up and hands him the rope, "Says you." They look down to the well to see Glenn managed to wrap the rope around the walker during the chaos.
   Winona smiles and proceeds to notice T-Dog laying on the ground. She then goes over to him to begin checking over his cut to make sure he didn't reopen it.
——
   The redneck emerges from the woods, into a clearing that held an abandoned house. He arms himself with his crossbow as he approaches. kicking the doors open, he slowly walks in, on guard and wary of any potential threats. He combs through the first level of the house, noticing the back door was open. Daryl finds a opened pack of food that had been eaten recently. Hearing something in the nearby pantry, he approaches the old door that was slightly ajar. Inside he finds a tiny camp with blankets and pillows. The man steps outside the previously opened back door, glancing around he calls out, "Sophia!" A white flower catches his eye and he crouches down to inspect it.
——
   After regrouping and Maggie bringing over a horse to help, the small team begin to pull the walker out of the well. "Come on, guys, pull," T-Dog says.
   Shane adds on, "Come on y'all,"
   "Almost there. Come on, pull, guys," T-Dog motivates as he watches the walker get closer and closer to the surface. As it finally reaches the edge, it begins to snarl at T-Dog, causing him to jump back to avoid any attacks. "Come on. Almost there. You've got to pull it, man!"
   Noticing the walker isn't moving further, Winona shouts, "It's stuck!" Hearing this, they try pulling harder, "No guys wait. Don't—" Just as she had thought, the walker was so rotten that the extra force tore it apart. Guts cover the ledge of the well as they watch the lower half of the body fall right back down to the bottom of the well. The walker that was still alive begins to reach out towards the group.
   "We should seal off this well," Dale states.
   Shane rubs his head, "Yeah, might be a good idea."
   "So what do we do about—" Andrea starts as she points to the walker but is soon interrupted by T-Dog smashing the head of the walker in. Glenn watches as Maggie walks away, disgusted at the scene in front of her.
   Winona looks at Andrea and Shane as T-Dog stops hitting the walker, "Good thing we didn't do anything stupid like shoot it." T-Dog nods dropping the pipe and he walks away.
——
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