my tears ricochet

Chapter 105

The walkers poured out of the trees. They shuffled over the neglected lawns of old houses clustered outside Alexandria's walls and Daryl stiffened at their approach. He fired a bolt off at the smallest shape, a child that might have been six or seven years old before dying.

It struck the walker hard and it dropped to the ground under the weight of mercy.

"This is endless," Gabriel winced as he wiped dark blood off his hatchet and onto the tattered pants on one body. "They keep piling up at the gate and we'll have problems when the others return."

Maggie, Rosita, and Michonne were gone to the Sanctuary. Daryl could only assume that the staggered attacks were taking up the bulk of the Saviours time and energy and that gave their neighbours some room to assemble their own safeguards. "Problems if we can't start burning 'em," Daryl scowled at the bodies littering the ground. They didn't need disease spreading off of the corpses like it had in the prison.

"Jesus. It's grim out here," Bob added. "But at least the sun's shining."

Rick was a few paces behind and cleared one walker that was ambling up from the bushes with an efficient swing of his own hatchet. He wasn't sure what had ever happened to the one Ivy earned. His closet was empty and he could only assume that if she had been carrying it, it was gone to the river that nearly killed her.

Days had gone by. The gaps between waves was shrinking. Daryl knocked one walker with his crossbow and let it fall before kicking it hard to the skull. It rolled across long grass and came to a stop, just in time for him to ward off the second one coming at him.

His shoulders ached from the weight of fighting. He wanted sleep, he wanted the world to go silent for a few hours.

He felt something coming up on his blind spot and turned around to see Ivy catching one walker from behind. She used a knife to stab through the base of it's skull, mouth pressed flat as she forced it to drop. "Hi," she said weakly as she looked up and saw his disapproval. "I wanted to know when you were coming off shift."

"Get back inside that gate," he ground out, impatient, shooting a bolt into a stray walker before it could get any closer. "Now."

"It's dangerous to drive when you're tired. I'm pretty sure the same logic applies to this."

"You've got two seconds to start walking before you're grounded."

Ivy yanked the knife free. "You can't ground me."

"You sure about that?" Daryl warned her. "Two seconds."

"House arrest is basically being grounded anyways," she sniped but relented, backing away and returning to the open gate. He watched to make sure she actually returned through and didn't try to slip around the edge of the wall before resuming his attention to the others.

"Everyone is getting restless," Bob pointed out. "Hard to live when you got the legions of the undead being escorted over. This is an incredibly personalized message and I'm pretty sure the Saviours are saying that they're ready for a fight."

"Revelations was incredibly light on details for this kind of thing," Gabriel grimaced. "Dead rising up, sure. But they're basically handholding them over to the doorstep. I always thought trick or treating was a weird concept but I miss it. I want children running around begging for candy in the middle of the night instead of this nonsense."

"It's fucked up," Daryl condensed as he recalled the living eyes peering through the dead mask. "And it doesn't seem like they're planning on calling it quits anytime soon."

"Gotta want something," Rick pointed out. "Otherwise they'd bring the full horde through."

"They want this place to take after we're dead."