Trying to Make It Right

A Look Into Happenings Elsewhere

           Hershel looked over his farm and the impossible sights it provided him with a careful eye. When he had first woken up, he hadn't known what to think about the place he had found himself in. One minute he remembered kneeling in front of the prison with Michonne by his side with the knowledge that the Governor planned to kill one of them, both of them eventually, and then he was waking up in his bed with his missing leg intact and his wife sleeping next to him. For a brief couple of days he convinced himself that the time he had spent with Rick Grimes and his people was all a bad dream, and he would have kept up with that belief if the report of one Rick Grimes getting shot of duty hadn't made it's way to him. He really took notice when the reports of the dead rising came in, and unlike last time he didn't think they were just sick. He knew better then to believe that bullshit from the memories that he shouldn't have and he wasn't shy about letting his family know what his opinions on the subject were in an attempt to keep them alive.

         Not everyone believed him though and he really couldn't blame them for holding onto the hope that the people wandering out there were just sick and could be cure. God knew that he had held onto that hope for long enough that it almost got all of his family killed. It would have gotten them killed eventually if Grimes' people hadn't taken it upon themselves to take care of what they knew was a danger. He'd been a fool once and he would be damned if it happened to him again. He wasn't about to lose his family.

         This time when Annette and Shawn went to help their stumbling, bleeding neighbor Hershel tried to stop them both, remembering that this is how he lost them the first time around. He was able to stop his wife, but his step-son stubbornly continued on, and Otis ran after him with Jimmy in tow as Hershel struggled to load his gun. It was like watching a horror show in slow motion, knowing the ending that was rapidly approaching but trying to stop it anyway. Shawn reached the stumbling figure first and it latched onto him, digging his teeth into his neck in a feral, hunger driven frenzy. Otis went down next as he yanked the once man off his employer's son, the walker's head turning and taking a bite out of his arm- just as Hershel's wife had suffered before. Jimmy was reaching for the biting man, yelling for him to calm down as if the man would suddenly stop attacking him and listen to reason. He would be next if Hershel didn't act fast.

         By the time Otis's pained scream joined Shawn's last gurgles of life Hershel was running with his gun, intent on saving the young man, and maybe Otis, if the larger man didn't get bit anywhere else but his arm. They had proven that amputating limbs kept the fever from taking hold, so he still had a chance. He shot the teeth gnashing, biting neighbor first, since it was the immediate threat, not even flinching as his bullet went through the side of his once friend's head and ended his undead life. It took him a second longer to force himself into shooting Shawn in the head to stop him from rising and attacking himself or his family, but he did so even as his gut churned. Grimes' people had taken care of his boy and wife the last time around and thankfully he hadn't had to put down any of his family after that.

         His wife was screaming hysterically behind him, but Hershel's attention was already on Otis. Amputating his arm would change how things played out with Grimes finding his farm, but the man being bit already did that. Even if Otis didn't die today he wouldn't be shooting Grimes' boy and if he didn't shoot that young man then the group didn't have a reason to come to him for help. Maybe he could manipulate the girl being lost, if he found her then he could go to the highway that Maggie had ridden to and invite them back to his farm for a rest. He shook himself from his thoughts, he had a situation on his hands that he needed to take care of before he went planning on how to meet Rick and his people.

         "Where are you bit Otis?" He demanded the man who had been shocked into silence when he'd shot Shawn. The large man curled around his bleeding arm defensively and Hershel nodded to himself. "We need ta take that off. Ya saw the poor bastard that was Mr. Crowley. He had bit marks all over him and the news told us the bites spread it. We might be able ta save ya yet Otis." He assessed, already taking off his belt to make a tourniquet, nodding to the machete still hanging uselessly from Jimmy's belt as he did.