rag doll | TWD

[46] now

dirty deeds done dirt cheap --- ac/dc

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[POV]

"The town was overrun. He split off with Nicholas. He had this idea that..." Michonne told Maggie, JJ and Tara about what had happened with Glenn as Deanna watched from the lookout. "If he lit a fire, it would stop the walkers from coming here. I tried to go instead. I wanted to. The fire never got lit. We had to keep going. I'm sorry."

Maggie put her face in her hands. 

"He said if he got stuck, he would find a way to send us a signal."

"A signal?" Maggie clarified. 

"Open the gate!" Rick shouted from a distance aways, only able to get Deanna's attention. "Open the gate!"

Hearing the second cry for help, JJ and Michonne unlatched the gate, pulling it open. Rick was followed by the herd of walkers, who now crowded the gate that Rick had just run into.

"Rick!" JJ tightly hugged her brother. 

"Where's Carl? And Judith. Are they okay?"

JJ nodded, "they're fine," as she walked with him back to their house. He told her about half of the herd splitting off because of the horn. And she told him about the attack from the Wolves. 

The first thing Rick noticed was the body at the pinned to the side of the stairs, impaled by part of their staircase. 

"Ooh, yeah. Should've mentioned the new wall art. Sorry." JJ crossed her arms. 

"Don't be." Rick unsurely stared at the man stuck to the wall. "You protected Judith and Carl."

"Yeah, well, he was going to get to them over my dead body." She motioned to the one with the bloody W across his forehead. "And now he's impaled on our wall... so we see how that worked out for him."

Rick stifled a laugh, "Think he learned his lesson."

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Rick had gathered the ones who survived the attack from the Wolves to the gate.

"Some of you saw it. They got back here, half of them." Rick spoke loudly to the people of Alexandria. "Still enough to surround us, twenty deep. Look, I know you're scared. You haven't seen anything like this. You haven't been through anything like this. But we're safe...for now. The panel the truck hit seems intact. We reinforced it just in case. Either way, the wall's gonna hold together. Can you? The others, they're gonna be back."

Rosita nodded, agreeing, "they're gonna be back."

"Daryl, Abraham, Sasha, they have vehicles. They're gonna lead 'em away like the others. And Glenn and Nicholas are gonna walk back through the front gate after. They know what they're doing and we know what we need to do."

Maggie stepped forward, feeling hopeful that her husband was still out there, alive. 

"We keep noise to a minimum. Pull our blinds at night. Even better, keep the lights out. We'll try to make this place as quiet as a graveyard, see if they move on."

"This place is a graveyard." One of the women stated, bringing Rick's speech to a halt. 

"The quarry broke open and those walkers were heading this way. All of them. The plan that Rick put into place stopped that from happening. He got half of them away." Aaron vouched. "I was out there recruiting with Daryl. I wanted to try to get into a cannery and scavenge and Daryl wanted to keep looking for people. We did what I wanted... and we wound up in a trap set by those people and I lost my pack. They must've followed our tracks. Those people who attacked us...they found their way back here because of me."