Junebug • TWD

47. Home to the Prison.

We've been walking for ages now, except for one time when we stopped for water. I think Dad's leading us back to the prison, but he hasn't said much since we started walking. He's just been doing a lot of ignoring Merle. 'Cause Merle decided to follow us, even though he knows he ain't gonna be welcome at the prison.

I think we're getting pretty close to the prison now. We've gotta be. This forest can't be that big, can it?

"Dad, how much-?" My question is interrupted by the sound of gunshots ringing out from ahead of us.

Dad freezes for a moment, locking eyes with Momma, and then with Merle. "Damnit," he mutters.

"That's the Governor, alright," Merle says.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That means that the Governor is at the prison. And everyone else is at the prison. So that means that they're all being attacked and they don't got us to help them. Even though I know I ain't much help, I know my parents are. And Merle can be helpful sometimes when he ain't being all stupid and everything. No offense, Uncle Merle.

I watch Dad pull his crossbow off of his shoulders, and then he grabs my wrist and looks me right in the eyes. He's got a serious you better listen to me type look on his face, which is becoming more and more frequent lately because we're always in some sort of trouble lately. Dad's about to speak, and then he eyes his hand, holding tight around my wrist, and he moves his grip from my wrist to my hand. "You stay with me or your mom at all times 'till either she or I say so. Don't try and be all brave this time. You don't got the energy for it. Understand me?" He presses his thumb gently against my knuckles, I think to emphasize his words.

"'Kay," I say with a nod.

He lets go of my hand and we all go rushing toward the prison. Momma steals Merle's gun from his waistband, and we all ignore him when he starts complaining about it. He grabs himself some metal rod thingy from the ground when we get close enough to the prison to see all the chaos, so then he's at least got some sort of weapon.

When we were in the woods, I imagined going home to the prison would feel like getting home after a really long day of school, and you get to just sit on the couch and watch My Little Pony or something. This is not like that. It ain't peaceful at all.

There are walkers all over the yard, cars that I don't even recognize driving around, and gunshots going off left and right. I can see the sword lady running around slicing walker's heads off, and Glenn's driving a truck through the yard but I don't know where he's going, and Rick is, for some reason, outside the fence fighting off too many walkers at once.

Rick's got three or four walkers pinning him against the fence, snapping their jaws, when Dad loads a bolt into his crossbow and shoots it through one of the walker's heads. Then Momma shoots another one of the walkers and Merle goes running in with his metal rod like some sort of crazy person, screaming at nothing and jabbing walkers through their temples.

Together, Rick and Merle take down all the walkers swarming them, and now I see that Glenn was getting Hershel out of the yard, so they're doing that, and Dad gives Rick a firm nod that looks like it means a thousand things at once. 

I hook my finger through one of Dad's belt loops, and me, him, and Momma all start heading towards the fence, too. Mom and Dad take out all sorts of walkers as we go. They're really good at acting all calm during these situations. They probably look like action heroes, while I'm hiding behind them shaking and shrieking like I've got ants crawling all over me or something. 

Now the only thing separating me from everyone else in the prison is the big, old yard swarming with stinky, old walkers, which totally stinks.

The walk through the yard is so scary it almost feels like it's taking longer than all that walking we in the forest we did. It's really just because I'm very scared and even more tired. When we finally get back to the prison, I want to melt myself into the floor so I know I can stay here forever. But that doesn't work when I close my eyes and try, so I just lean against my dad and try to avoid everyone's eyes.