[Finished] Living Among the Dead

16. The Distance

When everyone is finally awake and doing their own things, Maggie and Sasha return, followed by a stranger...
"Hey," Maggie greets, "Everyone. This is Aaron." Aaron is followed by Sasha and the name alone has me taking a step back against the wall as everyone else rushes to get their weapons and point it all at the stranger.
"We met him outside."
Daryl walks past them, looks around outside of the barn.
"He's by himself," Maggie continues as Daryl walks over and begins frisking the man. "We took his weapons and we took his gear." Sasha and Tera close the doors behind Aaron as Judith starts fussing.
"Hi," Aaron greets, stepping forward seemingly to shake Rick's hand.
Everyone cocks their guns except me as I can't seem to step away from the wall, my world starting to spin slightly.
"It's nice to meet you," Aaron continues, despite the response from our group.
"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asks, and Maggie walks forward to give Aaron's weapon to Rick, who checks it and then puts it in his belt. "There something you need?"
Sasha responds, "He has a camp, nearby. He wants us to audition for membership."
Mason makes it to me and gives me a side hug, when I look down I see that he, too is affected by this man's name.
"I wish there was another word." Aaron sounds nervous. "Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights." No one laughs at his ill thought out joke.
"Um, and it's not a camp. It's a community. I think you all would make valuable additions. But it's not my call. My job is to convince you all to follow me back home. I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into. Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" Sasha moves forward, takes off the backpack from her back, and hands it to Rick. "Front pocket, there's an envelope."
Rick starts rummaging and takes out a manila envelope.
"Now, there's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologize in advance for the picture quality." He chuckles nervously. "We just found an old camera store last-"
"Nobody gives a shit," Daryl interrupts him.
Aaron turns to face him, "You're absolutely 100% right." He turns back to Rick who has now since opened the envelope and started looking at the pictures. "That's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you know you'll be safe. If you join us, you will be. Each panel i-in that wall is a 15-foot-high, 12-foot-wide slab of solid steel; framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing. Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say so. Like I said, security is obviously important. I-in fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival. The people. Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates." Rick starts walking towards Aaron. "Our community was first construc-" Rick reaches Aaron and cuts him off with a punch to the face that knocks Aaron on his ass, everyone tightening in on the two.
I watch as Michonne approaches Rick and whispers something to him, Rick responds by pointing to Carl and saying, "We got to secure him. Dump his pack. Let's see what this guy really is."
"Rick," Michonne says, sounding annoyed.
"Everybody else, we need eyes in every direction. They're coming for us. We might not know how or when, but they are."
I take my hand gun out and head for the door to the barn, Mason grabs my arm, "Mom, wait."
I shoot him a look that says we'll talk later, and continue heading to the door as Maggie speaks up, she, Daryl and Carol are restraining Aaron, who is now knocked unconcious.
"Me and Sasha, we didn't see him. If he had wanted to hurt us, he could've."
"Anybody see anything?" Rick asks, as I peak out the barn, and Glenn responds.
"Just a lot of places to hide."
"All right, keep looking." Rick approaches Carl, "What did you find?"
"Never seen a gun like that before," Carl responds, but I don't take my eyes off the outside.
"That's a hell of a right cross there, Rick." Aaron woke up.
"Sit him up," Rick instructs.
"I think it's better if-"
Aaron interrupts Maggie, "It's okay."
"He's fine." Rick says, "Sit him up."
I turn to look as Michonne and Maggie help him sit up with his restraints.
Aaron speaks, "You're being cautious. I completely understand."
"How many of your people are out there?" Rick shows him an orange flare gun, "You have a flare gun. You have it to signal your people. How many of them are there?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes. Yes, it does."
"I mean, of course, it matters how many people are actually out there, but does it matter how many people I tell you are out there? Because I'm pretty sure no matter what number I say; eight, thirty-two, four hundred and forty-four, zero. No matter what I say, you're not going to trust me."
"Well, it's hard to trust anyone who smiles after getting punched in the face." Rick responds.
"How about a guy who leaves bottles of water for you in the road?"
The water...
Daryl starts toward Aaron asking, "How long you people been following us?"
"Long enough to see that you practically ignore a pack of roamers on your trail. Long enough to see that despite a lack of food and water, you never turned on each other. You're survivors and you're people. Like I said, and I hope you won't punch me for saying it again, that is the most important resource in the world."
Its quiet as we all exchange looks.
Rick steps forward, "How many others are out there?"
"One. I knew you wouldn't believe me. If it's not words, if it's not pictures, what would it take to convince you that this is for real?" No one answers. "What if I drove you to the community? All of you? We leave now, we'll get there by lunch."
"I'm not sure how the 17 of us are going to fit in the car you and your one friend drove down here in."
"We drove separately. If we found a group, we wanted to be able to bring them all home. There's enough room for all of us."
"And you're parked just a couple miles away, right?" Carol asks.
"East on Ridge Road, just after you hit Route 16. We wanted to get them closer, but then the storm came, blocked the road. We couldn't clear it."
"Yeah, you've really thought this through," Rick says.
"Rick, if I wanted to ambush you, I'd do it here. You know, light the barn on fire while you slept, pick you off as you ran out the only exit. You can trust me."
Michonne aoproaches Rick, "I'll check out the cars."
I step forward, "I'll go with her."
"There aren't any cars," Rick argues.
"There's only one way to find out." Michonne states.
"We don't need to find out."
"I have lost too many kids, Rick. I can't give up on an opportunity that could keep Mason safe." I but in.
"You know what you know and you're sure of it," Michonne says, "but I'm not."
"Me neither," Maggie also agrees.
"Your way is dangerous, mine isn't," says Rick.
Michonne shakes her head, "Passing up someplace where we can live? Where Judith can live? That's pretty dangerous. We need to find out what this is. We can handle ourselves. So that's what we're gonna do."
"Then I will, too." Glenn says. "I'll go."
"Abraham?" Rick asks.
"Yeah," Abraham says walking to Aaron, "I'll walk with them."
"Rosita, Sev?"
"Okay," Rosita says, standing up as Sev nods, also getting to move.
"If there's trouble, you got enough firepower?" Rick asks Glenn.
"We got what we got."
Daryl walks Aaron to the side of the barn and I open the barn doors.
"The walkies are out of juice," warns Rick. "If you're not back in 60 minutes, we'll come. Which might be just what they want."
Before I walk out the door, I look at Daryl, "Can you watch out for Mason?"
Mason starts to argue but with a look from me he stops. I look back at Daryl, who nods once.
I follow Michonne out the barn doors.