Chapter 20 The Farm

Rick talks to Hershel for a while, negotiating with him to let them stay on the farm. Rick eventually manages to convince Hershel to let them set up camp by some trees. Hershel had some conditions that they had to follow before they could stay, being not to go anywhere near the barn and not carrying guns when walking around the farm.

With that out of the way, Rick asks Hershel if they have a doctor here because they have an injured man. Hershel gives him a positive answer. Rick then goes toward the group, telling them to set up camp near the trees. Rick then enters the RV, helping T-dog to the house, John seeing Rick struggle helps him. They get into the house and sit T-dog down on a couch.

A nice woman with blonde hair come over to them, she introduces herself as Patricia, she takes the bandage off T-dog's arm and immediately says that it is infected. She then stitches his arm up before placing a bandage over it, then goes back to the kitchen where she continued preparing lunch for her family.

Seeing that T-dog is all bandaged up, John and Rick help T-dog out of the house and back to the RV. They sit him down on a chair in the RV before exiting, John grabs his pack from the car, taking out some antibiotics, he walks back to the RV, giving them to T-dog. Telling him to follow the instructions on the bottle. He then leaves him alone and goes outside and walking towards Amy.

Talking to her, he heard her say that she really loved the farm, saying it was a beautiful place, John fully agrees with her. He then asks her if they are going to share a tent or not. She says they will, so he starts to set up one of the bigger tents for them to share. When John had finished, he noticed that the others had also finished setting up the camp.

Everyone then started to sit around a bonfire that they had set up, John wrapping his coat around Amy as they cuddle together. Lily decided to join them, snuggling in between them. Everyone started to eat some food, the women had prepared. Apparently, the girls had helped cook, and they had big smiles on their faces when they heard the group say the food was good.

After they had finished eating, they all retired back to their own tents for the night. John and Amy walked over to their tent and John was holding Lily, deciding to let her sleep with them tonight. The two of them had taken a liking to the young girl and wanted to protect her from anything that might damage her young mind, this including emotional damage from loneliness. They all lay down, John on one side of Lily and Amy on the other. They then go to sleep, anticipating a nice sunny day, tomorrow.

Waking up early in the morning, John exits the tent quietly. He walks outside and then starts to run around the perimeter, checking for any damage to the wooden fence that surrounds the farm. Checking the entire fence, John found some spots that need some repairs, but overall, the fence was very sturdy.

John then ran back to the camp, seeing that some people are now up. John walks through the camp and saw that everyone had more or less settled in. John seeing as everyone was settled, walks toward the house. Arriving in front of the door, John knocks on the it and then waits for a couple minutes. The door opens and he saw Hershel standing there looking at him, waiting for him to say something. John says, "I noticed that there are a few sections of the fence that have been damaged. Do you have any wood I can use to fix it?"

Hershel surprised by Johns questions, recovers before saying, "Yes. There is some wood in the shed over there, along with some nails." John hearing this, nods and starts toward the shed, he walks inside before he grabs some sturdy pieces of lumber and some nails. Walking out with the wood, he put it inside one of the trucks and then starts to drive towards the fence, where he had seen some damage.

John arrived there and fixed the fence quickly before moving on to some other areas he had seen.

While John was doing this, Hershel was looking at John who was doing all this. He had a good impression of John, after seeing that he had some skills. Then he walked inside the house to read his bible and take his daily communion.

When John had finished fixing the fence, he drove the truck back to where it was before parking it. He then walks to the camp and grabs some food that had been prepared for him by Amy. After eating, John saw some people standing around a well.

Curious, John jogs over to them to find out the situation. Turns out a walker had fallen into the well, John seeing this, shoots it in the head. Saying all taken care of, the group was about to get mad at him, but before they could John tells them that even if they got the walker out, they couldn't be sure that the water isn't already contaminated.

Maggie, however, was not so quick to forgive him and got into his face yelling at him for shooting the person in the well. The group was shocked that she thought they were people, giving her strange looks. Seeing this Maggie was confused by their expressions, but she stomps off to brush the horses.

Seeing her stomp off the group left back to the camp, while John covered the well and wrote, "CONTAMINATED", on the cover. Then he also walked back to camp, he saw Otis getting into his truck, so he walked over. John asked Otis where he was going, Otis telling him that he was going hunting, John asks to join before hopping into the car after hearing a yes.

They drove for a while, then they pulled off onto the side of the road. Otis got out and started to head into the woods with John following him. Otis then began to teach John how to hunt and track animals. Showing him the signs, and following the tracks, teaching him passionately, seems Otis really liked to hunt.

Learning from Otis, John started to follow him, pointing out different tracks. Otis following some track, too immersed in his tracking, did not see the walker flanking him. John seeing this couldn't help but shake his head, he then pulled his knife out stabbing the walker. Otis snapped out of his focus and saw the dead walker within a foot of him. Looking over, he saw John pull his knife out of its head.

Otis then thanked John, before they continued following the tracks. In the distance they could see a buck, it was an 8-point buck, not huge but it was average in size. Otis then aimed his rifle, pausing for a while and taking a breath, he then shot, the buck crumpling to the floor. Otis had hit the buck right in the heart. They then walked over to it, and John picked it up, carrying it on his shoulders. Otis was surprised by this show of strength, but seeing the amount of muscle on his arms, he calms down.

They then head back to the car, before driving back to the farm. Everyone looks over and were excited when they saw the buck in the back of the truck. John then gets out with Otis, before carrying it and putting it where Otis told him to. John then watched as Otis bleeds the deer, he then started to skin the deer, and cut it up into sections while explaining the process to John.

With the deer all processed, Otis gave John a half of the deer, for saving him. They then pardoned themselves before going in different directions. John carried the meet over to the camp, putting it on a foldable table. The women coming over in order to cook it for dinner.

John then got up on the RV and sat next to Dale, talking to him, learning from Dale's vest wisdom. They talked for a couple hours. They argued with each other about morals for a while but gave up after seeing that neither side was willing to budge. They then sat in silence, John unbuttoning his shirt because of the heat. This action drew the eyes of the women, Maggie looking especially impressed.

The sky started to darken, John jumped off the RV, going to the campfire and sitting down. Eating their Venison steaks in silence, they enjoyed it a lot. After eating John and Amy went to their tent and slept, Lily not wanting to join them tonight.