The New King
Rick was lost in thought about where he would
lead his people next. The warm weather was cooling. Even though winters were
mild in the south Rick didn’t want his people, or his family, on the road
avoiding herds and trying to find a way to stay warm at night that wouldn’t
involve activity that would draw walkers.
Hershel had a good setup. He had plenty of room
but Rick figured he would still want them to move on, especially after Rick repaid
his debt regarding Carl by getting rid of his problems with these raiders that
were likely to return. Rick considered claiming the farm they used for target
practice, but there was safety in numbers and adding Hershel and his family to
their group would be a benefit. Besides, he could see relationships forming
between Beth and Glenn, and Maggie and Daryl, that wouldn’t be easy to break
with them hitting the road.
Andrea’s panicked banging on the cab window of
the truck drew Rick from his thoughts.
“The smoke signal is lit, Rick,” said Andrea.
Rick saw the column of black smoke rising into
the air from Hershel’s farm. Without hesitation, or warning, he stomped on the
accelerator and the truck surged forward, nearly tumbling Beth, but Glenn
caught her. He twisted the wheel and turned onto a side road that led to the
back of the farm house.
Carl…Michonne…
The truck had barely come to a stop before
everyone jumped from the back of the truck and began to make their way toward
the farmhouse, their guns drawn.
*****
Shane Walsh saw the truck that sped along the
side road. He recognized, even at a distance, three of the people who rode in
the back: Glenn, Andrea, and Carol. It surprised him that they would be on this
farm and he wondered why they’d left camp. His gaze returned to the farm house.
He'd have bet his right hand that Michonne was in that house.
He’d have answers as to what his old group was doing on this farm. For now, though, he
would need to talk his new group out of this attack.
“Dave, we gotta go, man.”
“It’s just an old man and a woman, Walsh. If you’re
too much of a yella-bellied fairy to face--”
“They got back-up, man. They just came up the
side road. I know those people. They’re from my old group.”
“The one that kicked you out?” said Louis. The little windows that opened in the center of the back window of the cab were open and the men in the bed of the truck could hear everything Shane and Dave said to one another.
Shane nodded. “That’s the one. There’s six of us
here,” Shane said, as the truck pulled to a stop in the front yard. “I saw at
least seven in that truck, plus there’ll be more inside the house. They’ll be
armed and I can guarantee you, they ain’t afraid of pullin’ the trigger.”
The others looked to Dave. He’d been given this
mission by their leader, a man who insisted on being called King George. One of
his lieutenants had been killed on the first attack on this farm. Dave wanted
to take his place and the only way to do that was to take the farm, secure it
for George to claim as his new ‘castle,’ and capture the old man so George
could have his revenge.
Shane had been willing to go along. He needed a
group for survival, but he didn’t plan to remain a foot soldier for long. George
was well-hated by his group. Shane figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to turn people to his
side so he could take over and get rid of George once and for all.
“You wanna quit, Walsh?”
“No, Dave. I just don’t wanna make your stupid
mistakes, the same ones that got your other men killed. I was a cop, and one
thing I learned on the job, and since the Turn, is that when the situation
changes you have to change with it. You gotta adapt. Sometimes retreat is the only
answer. You fall back, make better plans, and you live to fight another day.”
“That sounds logical to me,” said Louis. “We
should turn around, Dave.”
Dave considered it for all of two seconds, then
climbed out of the truck. “We go in. We ain’t gonna leave till this farm is
ours.”
Since Dave couldn't be reasoned with, and he had no intentions of getting killed because of another man's foolishness, Shane lifted his gun and put a bullet in Dave’s
chest. He staggered back, a look of shock on his face, before he collapsed.
Shane climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the truck around, then headed
down the long dirt drive toward the road.
“Dude,” Louis said, peering in at Shane from his
place in the bed of the truck.
“Us taking them on with the firepower and
numbers we got would be like storming a fucking fort with a slingshot,” Shane
said. “You wanna die for nothing, fine, jump out and go back.”
Louis shook his head and gulped. “No, I don’t
wanna die, but...Shit!”
Shots rang out. Shane heard one of the men in
back cry out, then another. He glanced in the rear view mirror and saw that Rick
was in pursuit with an old man in the passenger seat. He had two men left alive
in the back of the truck.
“Step on it, Walsh!” Louis cried out.
Well, well, Shane thought. Looks like Rick finally grew a pair.
The sound of another shot was followed by
another falling body. Louis now lay down, covering himself under the bodies of
their comrades. Shane whipped the truck onto the road and sped off. He looked
back and saw Louis peering over the tailgate, his gun out, and Rick’s truck
skid to a stop. Louis had managed to take out one of their tires.
“Pull over, damn it!” Louis shouted.
Shane kept going, getting well out of range of
Rick’s guns. After Rick and his new friend were no longer in sight Shane
stopped the truck and let Louis climb into the passenger seat.
“Roll up your window,” said Louis.
“Why?”
“Don’t you know, man?” Louis asked. “They’re
gonna rise.”
Louis cranked his window closed and turned to
look into the bed of the truck where three of their people lay dead.
“You gotta get bit or scratched to turn,” Shane
said, unconcerned while he continued on.
“No, man. Everybody who dies comes back. Just
look.”
Shane watched as one of their men sat up. Ben
was his name. He’d been shot in the chest and now he lunged for the glass of
the cab window. Shane cranked his window closed just in time to keep Ben from
reaching around to get at him.
“Fuck!” Shane shouted. “They turn? That means…”
“Everybody’s infected, yeah,” said Louis. “Whatever
makes these things, we all got it.”
*****
By the time Shane pulled into their camp all
three men in back were up and trying to break through the glass. Louis suggested
they wait for somebody in the camp to kill the men before they attempted
getting out, but Shane climbed out and put an end to Ben and the others
himself.
A girl named Regina approached. She was about
fifteen, if Shane remembered correctly, and she was one of George’s favorite
women. If she could be called that, Shane thought, as young as she was. George had first taken
her when she was thirteen, but now she was losing his favor since she was
getting too old for his liking. She’d been coming onto Shane, sensing she’d
need a new man to keep her safe from the other men in the camp. He wasn’t
interested. She was just too young for his tastes.
“King George wants Dave to come to his office.
Looks like Dave ain’t here,” she said, peering into the blood soaked bed of the truck.
“I’ll go see him.”
“Musta been a bad fight,” she said.
“Sure was,” Shane answered.
He pulled the door shut in her face and then nodded
at Bill and Warren, George’s muscle.
“Hey, Walsh,” said Warren. “I got my hands on a
case of Bud. Why don’t you stop by later and we’ll crack a few open over a game of poker?”
Shane clapped Warren on the shoulder. “Sounds
like a plan, man.”
He nodded toward Bill and then went in to face
George.
“Where’s Dave?”
“Dave's dead. So are Ben, Casey, and Frank,” Shane
explained.
“Well, what the fuck happened?”
“Turns out there’s more of them than we thought,”
Shane said. “People are there. People from my old camp. They killed Dave, then,
when I called retreat, they--”
King George looked outraged. “You pussied out?”
“No, I made a tactical decision. Fall back, get
more men, go back better prepared.”
Even as Shane spoke, however, a sneer came over
George’s face and he waved his hand dismissively. George didn’t like Shane, and
Shane knew it. Shane’s biggest sin was that he was not only obvious leadership material,
and a former cop, but he was liked by their people in ways that George wasn’t.
He’d been there less than two weeks and already
he had the respect of practically everybody in the camp. Women loved him, men
looked up to him, something George would never experience. George had already
sent one assassin to get rid of Shane, but he’d lost that fight, and he’d lost
it badly.
“You pussied out,” George said again, with a bored
sigh.
Shane kept his anger in check. “What would you
have done, George?”
“That’s King George, Walsh. I would have
finished it.”
“I doubt that,” Shane said, earning a glare, but
he pressed on. “We barely got out of there alive.”
George was a coward and a fool. He was lazy,
perverse, and disliked by his people, who only put up with him because they
needed someone in a position of leadership. They needed to feel protected.
“You failed because you don’t know how to finish
what you start,” George said.
Shane had reached his limit with the skinny,
greasy moron who sat before him. He’d be damned if he’d stand there and allow
the guy to belittle him.
“You know what, George? I don’t think you have
the balls to follow through on anything yourself. If you did, you would have
been the one leading the attack on that farm. You’d have manned up and taken
the lead.”
George’s face flushed and veins popped out like
thick, crooked worms on his temples. He jumped up, stick thin and unimposing,
and jabbed a finger in Shane’s face. “You’re done, Walsh. Guards!”
Bill and Warren stepped into the room. “Problem?”
Bill asked.
“Take this piece of shit coward out front. Put
him down. I’m gonna make an example of him, show people what happens when they
cross me.”
Shane held up his hands, halting Warren and Bill’s
approach, though they didn’t exactly look keen to bring harm to Shane. Unlike with George they actually liked and respected Shane.
“I know you got a job to do, fellas, and I
respect that, but hold up,” Shane said. He looked back at George. “Why don’t
you do it, George?”
All three men regarded Shane.
“I know Bill and Warren have the balls to face
me. Do you, George?” Shane asked, deliberately omitting George’s desired title.
The guards looked at one another, chewing that
idea over, before crossing their arms, interested to hear what Shane had to
say.
“I mean, I’ve been here almost two weeks. All I’ve
seen you do, George, is sit on your ass, bossin’ people around, molestin’
little girls and tellin’ everybody they gotta call you ‘king’. You ain’t my
king, you skinny little worthless cunt.”
George pointed at Shane, his face a bright shade
of red, “I said take him outside!”
“What’ll you do if they don’t?” Shane asked. He
looked back and Warren and Bill, who were now smirking. “I mean, you gonna yell
at them, too?”
Bill and Warren snickered. That’s when Shane,
and George too, knew it was over for the would be king.
“I’ll tell you what, fellas. You’ll never have
to call me king. You’ll never see me eyeballin’ your twelve-year-old daughters,
either, like this sick fuck.”
“You sayin’ you wanna take over?” Bill said.
“I’d do better by our people than this little
shit,” Shane pointed out, before turning to George. “You wanna be king, George,
you gotta prove you deserve it.”
George brought up a gun but Shane took hold of
his little wisp of an arm and forced the gun up until the muzzle was under
George’s chin. Then he wrested the gun away, gripped George by the wrist, and hauled
him toward the camp.
“Do something!” George shouted, but Warren and
Bill kept their hands in their pockets.
“You’re the king,” said Bill. “You’re supposedly such a badass. Save yourself.”
Outside, the twenty people who made up their
camp went about their daily business. Most of them were women, but a few were
younger boys and men. They looked alarmed when they saw Shane manhandling
George.
“Listen up, y’all!” Shane shouted. “We got us a
regime change happenin’ here. Unless, of course, George here has the stones to
fight to keep his crown.”
“You ungrateful shits! Do something!” George
shouted.
Nobody moved. Most of them were too scared, and
when they saw Warren and Bill not making an effort to defend George, they didn’t
dare either.
“Fight, George,” said Shane.
George glared at Shane, but his bottom lip began
to tremble. He looked around at his people. “I’ve taken care of y’all. I’ve
made sure you’re fed and safe--”
“Y’all did that for yourself. He just made sure
you thought you needed him,” Shane
countered. “Y’all’ve been protecting him, not the other way around. He’s been
using your little girls in the sack. Piece of shit. If a man ain’t willing to
stand up and fight for what’s his then he don’t deserve it. He said I was a
pussy. Looks like he’s the pussy in this group.”
Shane leveled George’s own gun at him.
“You gonna fight, pussy?”
George’s lip continued trembling. His eyes
continued searching the group for anyone who would come to his defense. Nobody
did.
“That’s what I thought.”
Shane put the gun to George’s head and pulled
the trigger, putting an end to the man who would be king. He looked at the people
gathered around him.
“I’m the new sheriff in town. I’ll never
mistreat you. I’ll never keep the good shit for myself and throw y’all my
sloppy seconds. I’ll never touch your little girls. I’ll always have your back.
Y’all are gonna see. Life’s about to get a whole lot better around here. Y’all
with me?”
The people shared a glance at one another before
shouting their approval. Shane figured they did so out of fear more than
genuine joy, but he was going to make them love him. He was going to make them
want to do anything for him. That way, when it came time to move on the farm
again, they would willingly fight tooth and nail to take the place down.
Then he would kill Rick. Then he would take the
women and children and add them to their numbers.
Then, he would finally have Michonne.
*****
Carol was beside herself when Hershel and Rick
returned to the farmhouse with the truck hobbled on a flat tire. Michonne and
Maggie sat on either side of her, trying to comfort her. There was a look of
worry in Michonne’s eyes and Carl looked pale.
“What’s wrong?”
“She says Shane was driving the truck,” said
Michonne.
“No, that wasn’t Shane,” Rick said.
“It was!” Carol insisted.
“I think she’s right, Rick,” Michonne said. “He’s
shaved off his hair but I could have sworn it was him.”
“He must have found these people pretty quickly
after leaving our camp,” said Dale.
“He probably spotted us when we came up the side
road,” Andrea added. “That’s why he wanted to leave so quickly.”
“He’ll come back for Michonne. He’ll kill our
men and take the women,” Daryl warned.
Carol whimpered fearfully at those words.
“God only knows how many people he has. We’re
not prepared for war,” said Hershel.
“Everybody calm down, let me think,” Rick
ordered. He paced in front of the porch, trying to think of what was best to
keep the group safe. Leave it to Shane to take up with a band of murderous
thugs.
“I say we search him out. Let’s scout the area and
see if we can find his camp. We can watch them, see what kind of manpower and
guns they’ve got,” Glenn suggested.
“We can take search parties out tomorrow. It’s
too late in the evening for that now. We need to move our camp into the woods.
That way we can keep an eye on the house.”
“What good will that do?” Patricia asked.
“Shane may come back tonight with a bigger
group, heavily armed, and we’re not ready to face that. For tonight we need to
be off the property but somewhere we can watch and see what he does.”
“We won’t be able to live in the woods forever,”
said Hershel, “and I’m not abandoning my home.”
“Just for tonight. I know Shane. He’ll come back
immediately if he has the resources. If not he’ll wait, bide his time, and come
back when he does have what he needs to take us out in one attack. If he’s not
back tonight then we’ll have some time to find supplies and fortify the house
for a fight when it comes.”
“Unless we can find him first,” Glenn insisted.
Rick nodded. “Unless we find him first.”
They quickly moved the tents from the camp in
the side yard to the woods lining the Greene farm. Hershel had a couple of
tents stored in the attic that he pulled out for himself, Patricia, Maggie, and
Beth. He intended to share his tent with Glenn and Daryl while the other tents
were divvied up between the others.
Daryl helped set up the tent Maggie would share
with Patricia and Beth. Maggie was still trying to figure Daryl out. He seemed
to both like and fear her attentions. He hardly ever spoke, and frankly, she
was ready to give up.
“You got a sporting goods store in town?” Daryl
asked.
Well, he can speak first, Maggie thought.
“Sure do. It’s called Farrell’s. I know exactly
where it is. It’s probably been looted of anything useful, like ammo.”
“I need some bolts for my crossbow,” he
explained. He finally found the courage to look her in the eye when he spoke. “Since
we have to run into town to look for stuff anyway, I thought I’d look.”
“I’ll come with you, show you where it is,”
Maggie said. She stepped closer. For once, Daryl didn’t back away.
“It’s a date,” she said, and then kissed him
very softly, very close to his lips, and then went into the tent where her
sister was waiting.
A date.
Daryl had a happy, buoyant feeling in his chest
as he went to his lookout post beside Hershel.
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