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THE BARN DOORS swung open. A stranger came walking in with his hands held up in the air to deflect everything and to make himself appear more harmless than what he could have been with Maggie and Sasha walking behind him with their guns pointed at him. Maggie walked in front of the stranger, glancing at everyone who was mostly working on cleaning their weapons up. "Hey, everyone, this is Aaron." she introduced. Ella dropped the cloth and stood up, pointing her gun at him and followed her instincts. He was a stranger. Someone they didn't know. Someone they never met before in the past life or the life now. And the group definitely the same as she did.
Maggie continued on, stepping forward with the stranger. "We met him outside. He's by himself. We took his weapons and we took his gear." she explained. Daryl patted the man down to the bone.
The man smiled. "Hi." Rick handed a crying Judith off to Carl. "It's nice to meet you." the man stepped forward. Daryl put his crossbow on him.
"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked. Maggie nodded and handed him the strangers weapon. Rick placed it in his waistband. "There something you need?"
"He has a camp nearby." Sasha informed. She glanced between Aaron and Rick. "He wants us to audition for membership."
Ella stared at the man, looking him up and down.
Aaron sighed. He slowly looked at Rick. "I wish there was another word. Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe," he laughed. "That's only on Friday nights," he laughed again. No one moved or said anything. Ella lifted an eyebrow. "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," he looked at Rick who seemed to be in disbelief that he even suggested that. "I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into," he turned around. "Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?" he asked. Sasha handed him his pack. "Front pocket. There's an envelope. There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those."
Rick pulled out photos from the envelope of their community.
"I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last-" Aaron stammered a little.
Daryl gruffly said, "Nobody gives a shit."
Aaron nodded. "You're absolutely one-hundred percent right," he looked at Rick who threw the envelope to the ground and was looking at the photos. "That's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you'll be safe. If you join us, you will be. Each panel in that wall is a fifteen-foot-high, twelve-foot-wide slab of solid steel framed by cold-rolled steel beams and square tubing. Nothing alive or dead gets through without our say-so. Like I said, security is obviously important," he looked at each and every person standing in the barn. "In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our communities survival. The people. Together we are strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was our first constructed-" he was cut off.
