Living With the Dead (A Walking Dead and Supernatural Story)

Chapter 12

   In the morning we eat breakfast with the new group of people. I've now learned all their names, not just Tyrese's. Carl still seems pretty unsure of them. They seem okay to me. Most of our strong people are out right now and if they wanted to kill us they probably would have done it already. But they might be afraid of what the rest of our group will do when they get back if they do kill us. We'll have to wait and see. Beth walks in with Judith and Tyreese and Sasha seem surprised. It would be weird seeing a new born baby after all this time.

   "How old is the baby?" Sasha asks.

   "Barely a week," Hershel responds

   She walks over to Beth, "To be honest we never thought we'd see another baby. Beautiful." Beth thanks her.

   "How are you feeling?" She asks Beth.

   "She's not mine."

   "Where's the mother?" Sasha questions. No one answers but she can tell by the way we react what happened. I glance at Carl. He's upset but trying to hide it.

   "Man, you people have been through the mill," Tyreese says.

   "Haven't we all?" Hershel retorts. Carl let's Beth back into the cell block and I stick to where I'm at. This also means that Scarlett stays.

   "It's only getting worse out there," states Tyreese, "Dead are everywhere. And it's only making the living less like the living."

   "People with act how they always wanted to. Nothing to stop them now. Less moral boundaries. Less reason to be good people," I say, "Of course being put through this stuff will change a person."

   Sasha looks to me, "Has it changed you?"

   "A little bit, but not as much as some people."

   She nods her head, "I believe that. You're the only decent folks we've come across."

   "You've been out there all this time?" Hershel asks.

   "Our neighbor Jerry, he was one of those survivalist nuts. Everybody on the block thought he was crazy. Always preparing for the end of the world," Tyreese says.

   "Maybe people shouldn't have thought he was crazy," I comment.

   Tyreese chuckles, "He had a bunker under his shed in the backyard. Sasha and I stayed there until we ran out of supplies. Allen and Ben were the first two people we ran into when we finally crawled up out of that hole around Jacksonville. Used to be a bunch of us. Twenty-five at one point."

   "Our camp was overrun six, seven weeks ago," Sasha explains.

   "And...and Donna, she, uh...." Tyreese doesn't finish his sentence. Hershel informs them that she'll get a proper burial from us. He thanks us and jokes about breaking into prison.

   "Tyreese. Like I said, we have a much larger group. A close-knit group. I wouldn't get too comfortable here," Hershel says.

   "We wouldn't be a problem," Tyreese replies.

   "It's not up to me," Hershel tells him.

   "Then who?" Tyreese asks, "Please, you can see what kind of people we are." Hershel doesn't respond and walks out of the room.

   I look to them, "My brothers and I weren't part of their original group. We got here before as they were starting to clear out the prison. Who knows, maybe you can stay. You do seem like good people." They smile at me.

   "Thanks kid," Tyreese says.

   Carl grabs my arm, "Come on Hadley, let's go."

   "I want to talk to them more," I say.