When The World Caves In |C.G.

thirty seven

Mr. Tubbins and I are curled up in my bed when gunshots wake me the next morning. The first thing that runs through my mind is that the Governor is back with a vengeance so I grab my crossbow and run towards the sound. 

The shots are echoing from Cell Block D, where a lot of the Woodbury residents reside. I'm following behind my father and a group of adults. When we reach the cell block there's a large amount of walkers in there. Considering that there's not supposed to be any whatsoever in here, this is a problem. 

It's mass hysteria as everyone in here panics, scrambling to get away from the undead. Rick yells for everyone to get out of harm's way. A walker makes it's way towards a young curly haired boy and Daddy picks him up, allowing me to send a bolt through its brain. 

I sling my crossbow over my back in favor for my knife, sending it through another walkers skull. Everyone is urged into a cell or out of the cellblock to make sure that they're out of the crossfire. 

"Are we clear down here?" Rick yells frantically. 

"Yeah!" Sasha responds. 

"Up here!" Someone yells from the second level, and I follow Daddy up the stairs. 

A dead woman lays on the ground in the middle of the catwalk, leaving me to question how walkers even got inside of the prison. Daddy and I walk side by side, down the catwalk until we hit the split. I take the left side and Daddy takes the right. Walking past a cell on the far end,  a walker lunges out as I pull back the curtain. 

"Get down!" Daddy yells. Quickly I duck, covering my head while Daddy kills the thing. "You good?" 

Even though I nod, he walks back over to me and grabs my hand pulling me up and into his chest with one arm quickly. He pats my back twice before releasing his grip.  Rick comes up behind us and opens the curtain to the cell that the walker just fell into. 

"Oh, it's Patrick." Daddy says sadly, we all peer down at the dead boy. He was fine yesterday morning, by the pale blue color of his skin I'm left wondering if he died shortly after reassuring me that he was fine. "That's all of 'em." 

"What the hell happened here?" I wonder out loud, and I know Rick is thinking the same thing by the look on his face. 

+

Daddy and Rick take their time, making sure each walker is actually dead. Sobs echo throughout the cell block as residents discover their loved ones bodies. 

"No bites, no wounds." Rick says, staring bewilderedly at a walker with blood streaking down its face. He had locked himself in the night before. "I think he just died."

"Horribly too." Dr. S says, staring at the graying body that lies dead on the floor. 

"Choked to death on his own blood." Hershel says. "Caused those trails down his face." 

"I've seen them before." Rick tells us explaining the walker he saw outside the fence.

"I saw them on Patrick, too." Dad tells him.

"Patrick went into the showers last night, he said he just needed to rinse off." I explain the encounter I had with the boy the night prior. He was just fine yesterday morning. How his body seemed to shut down so fast like that is beyond me. 

"They're from the internal lung pressure building up, like if you shake a soda can and pop the top, only imagine your eyes, ears, nose, and throat are the top." Dr. S explains and I find myself staring at the blood covering the bottom half of Charlie's face as he and Hershel answer how what exactly this sickness is.