let down • TWD

1.29 | fire

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Ricks head turns at the gunshot, still a little shocked that he wasn't hit with the bullet. "Are you okay?" Are the words that come out of her mouth. Shaky as they are.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm-I'm fine." He replies, looking back to his niece. She lowers her gun, eyes moving from Rick to her dads limp body behind him.

"Is he-" she hesitates with her words.

"Lemme check." He replies, carefully walking over.

"Are you-" Carl starts, but she cuts him off sharply, "not now."

He nods, grabbing his arm as they move over to Rick, watching as he kneels over her dads body. She can't stop looking at it. Her dads body. Her dads dead body.

"He's-yeah..." is his only response. They both nod, keeping their guns in their hands.

"Let's get to the house, yeah?" Uncle Rick speaks, "we can talk there."

"Okay." She mumbles. Carl grabs his dads hand and Cassie grabs his other.

"You bit too?" Carl asks, looking at his dad. Cassie wanted to ask the same question. Her dad was bit. That's why he turned into a walker, he musta been too scared to tell her or somethin'. Maybe that's why he was so nice to her the other day after him and Rick came back all bruised up. But that wouldn't explain why he wanted to kill Uncle Rick.

"No." He answers.

"Shane was." Carl says, looking down.

"That wasn't Shane. You know that."

"Used to be." Cassie murmurs, picking at a loose strand of her shirt with the hand that isn't holding her Uncles.

"What happened?" Carl asks, finally. He's asking mainly his dad, but also his best friend too. She was there, or she was there for most of it, at least.

Cassie doesn't respond. Neither does Rick.

"Were you guys attacked?" Carl stammers, "I mean, I-I heard a gunshot, but I didn't see any walkers nearby. How did Shane die?"

Rick stops walking, he wants to answer his son. But, he doesn't really know how to. Cassie notices his hesitation.So, she opens her mouth, but shuts it immediately as she hears shuffling. Lots and lots of shuffling. She turns her head.

Holy shit.

There's so many walkers. Like hundreds of 'em. Trailing behind them in what her dad used to describe as a herd. Like back at the highway, but so so so much worse.

"Holy-"

"Oh my god. Go go go-" Rick murmurs fearfully, grabbing both kids and pushing them in front of him. They run quickly until they end up ducked by a tree.

"We gotta get to the house. Tell the others." Carl whispers.  "We can't." Cassie replies, looking over towards the barn.

"We'll never get through that." Uncle Rick looks back towards the herd that's growing closer, "Can't go around."

"The barn." Cassie points out, nodding her head towards the huge wooden building.

"Okay. Stay close, go, go!" He grabs both of them as they duck and run past the growling walkers that are spread out around them. As they run into the barn, Cassie and Carl hold the door while Uncle Rick grabs a pole looking thing to keep the doors closed. The walkers grow closer, hands banging on the barn doors.

"Hell are ya doin'?" Cassie asks, looking at her Uncle who hands her and Carl buckets filled with what smells like gasoline. "Dump it, come on!" He instructs. He shakes the bucket, letting the gasoline spread across hay on the ground.