30 June 2014

Crossing The Line Chapter Five

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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