Shadow (TWD Carl)

~Chapter 18~

It was about 6:30 in the morning when I woke up. I got changed and looked outside the window, just in time to see Michonne leave. I looked over the fields and saw Carl and Rick working together on the farm. The image of dad and son always made me emotional, I don't know why. My brother had a connection with mom and I had a connection with my dad. I guess I just like seeing something that we never got to experience.

I walk out of cell block C and head towards cell block D where most of the Woodbury people were staying. My chores didn't start until 8am and I wanted to check to see if Patrick was alright after last night's coughing fit.

I enter the cell block and the first thing I noticed was the blood. I got a little confounded and took out a bowie knife Jack gave to me. Something wasn't right and I searched the area carefully. When I entered Patrick's room I was instantly pushed to the ground by a walker. But this wasn't any old walker, it was Patrick.

My eyes widened at the sight of him and I hesitated to kill him. He was forcing me down and snapping at me with his discolored, rotten teeth. Blood was dripping from his mouth and onto my face. I was lucky that I kept my mouth closed. I scream and shove the knife into his head when I feel something pierce my skin.

I push him off and get up as quick as I could. More walkers came out of the cells and I freaked out. I didn't have enough time to check my body where I had been impaled but I noticed a piece of metal on the ground that had some blood on it. Daryl comes into the cell block just in time with a few others. He hands me a gun and starts to shoot the walkers with his crossbow. It took me a while to get my head cleared and I shot at the nearest walker.

"Help! Help! Please, come quick!" I heard Mika and Lizzie scream from outside, probably trying to get Rick.

I continue to discard the walkers in the cell block and try not to get trapped with one. "Move!" I heard Rick barge in, trying to get one of us away from a walker. Gunshots rang throughout the prison and I tried to stay concentrated on what I was doing.

Shoot the walkers, get the living out.

"Daryl!" Rick yells when a walker comes up behind him.

"I got it. Are you bit?" I couldn't hear the response because I was too busy killing the walkers. One last walker entered the hallways and I threw my knife at its skull.

"That's all of 'em." I state. "We need to check the bodies, see how this started."

I go to check Patrick's and a few others but couldn't find anything to show how this really happened. "No bites. No wounds. I think he just died. Horribly, too. Pleurisy aspiration. Choked to death on his own blood. Caused those trails down his face." I explain. I thought back to last night and how Patrick was coughing heavily.

"I've seen them before on a walker outside the fences." Rick included.

"They must be 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 concludes.

"It's a sickness from the walkers?"

"No, these things happened before they were around. Could be pneumococcal. Most likely an aggressive flu strain. I remember seeing Patrick last night. He was coughing a lot and had to go to the bathroom. I didn't see him after that so I think he must have died from the sickness."

"How could somebody die in a day just from a cold?" I heard Daryl ask.

"I had a sick pig, it died quick. Saw a sick boar in the woods." Rick claimed.

"Pigs and birds. That's how these things spread in the past. We need to do something about those hogs. Everyone in here has been exposed and needs to stay away from those who haven't been." Hershel states.