Highway To Hell

Chapter 18

"Ready?" Hershel asks. It's the following morning, and we're about to clear the courtyard.

"No," I answer for all of us, making someone smack the back of my head. I chuckle in response.

Rick slides the gate open, and we enter. Daryl, Rick, T-Dog, Maggie, Glenn, and I form a loose circle as we go to protect our backs. The walkers throw themselves at us one after the other, but one by one we kill them. The others are yelling and banging on the fence from the other side to draw as many walkers as possible and pop them through the. It helps take a load off of us while keeping them safe.

"Don't break rank!" Rick yells, and I look over to see T-Dog breaking away to grab something.

"We need that," T-Dog responds, ignoring Rick's yells. T-Dog picks up a riot shield and slams it into a walker that had been about to attack him. The walker falls to the ground and Maggie runs over to kill it much to Rick's irritation. She quickly runs back over, and I smack her side in admonishment.

"I'm fine," she says.

"Almost there," Rick says. He opens a door, and nothing comes out, so he keeps going. "Shit," he whispers and flattens against the wall. We all follow. I crouch low next to the door that's still slightly open. I'm unsure what he saw that put us in this position, but I already know it can't be good.

"What's it," I whisper to nobody in particular.

"Shit ton of walkers in the second courtyard," T-Dog whispers back.

Two walkers in full riot gear come out from behind a dumpster and then two more right from around the corner we'd been standing next to. Daryl tries to shoot one, but the bolt just glances off the face shield. Rick and T-Dog attack them hands-on. The door creaks open and before I can dive to the side, fingers curl in my hair and start pulling me up.

"Little help!" I call quietly, falling back and twisting. Not bothering with the hand in my hair, I plant my own hands on the walker's chest. It's wearing a mask of some kind and repeatedly slams it into my face trying to bite me. Someone yanks it off me, but its hand is still tangled in my hair, so I'm half dragged with it. My scalp screams in pain and I bite down on my lip to keep the string of loud profanities from spilling out.

Maggie tries to bring her machete down on its head, but the mask causes the blade to bounce off harmlessly. It tries to pull me to it again. I yelp when the machete comes down inches away from my head, severing the hand from the body at the wrist. I quickly scramble to my feet. The walker follows, but a lot less gracefully. I back up to be shoulder-to-shoulder with Maggie. Glenn joins us.

Two of the walkers in riot gear from earlier decide to ally with their masked friend to kill us. Teamwork makes the dream work, I guess.

I take one step forward and plant my foot in the chest of one, shoving it back. One rams into Maggie, and she braces herself. Using one hand to tilt its whole head back by the face shield, she stabs the walker up through the soft area right below the jawbone. Luckily her blade is long enough to penetrate the brain, so it falls to the ground dead.

She looks at us, eyes wide and a little scary, if I'm being honest. "See that?" T-Dog and Glenn follow her lead. Glenn grabs the face shield of one and yanks it up while T-Dog takes the opening and kills it.

"Well, if it works, it works," I mutter. We make quick work of the remaining prison guards, and it isn't until after that I see the walker-filled courtyard that Rick and Daryl had managed to secure shut while I had been getting a new hairdo by gas mask.

"You okay?" Glenn asks me. I nod in response. He returns the nod, and he and Maggie go to let the others in.

"Well, it looks secure," Glenn says, walking back to us.