Chapter 34 Clearing the Prison

The next morning, the group ate breakfast. Then Rick said, "I want to push into the prison and completely clear it out. We should also check for any security breaches the prison may have."

The group completely agreed with Rick and trusted his choices, after all he had gotten them to the prison. John's voice was only second to Rick, and everyone had agreed that he was their vice leader.

With that John and Rick's group of men walked to the gate that would lead them to the cell blocks. John had talked to Rick and convinced him to let him clear a cell block by himself, while Rick and his group would clear cell block C, before they would move to the next one.

While they were doing that the rest of the group would stay in the yard and wait for them to get them later.

Now that they were at the gate, John asked, "Is everyone ready?" Everyone nodded with a serious expression on their faces. Glen then undid the bindings of the gate as the group pushed in. They stayed in formation and covered each other while moving forward.

They noticed another gate further in and it was slightly open. The gate had a large number of walkers behind it, and it would be troublesome for them to kill them all. So, they killed any walkers that got close to them as they moved towards the gate. They arrived at the gate without too much trouble and tied it shut.

They then focused on clearing the area, but they had some trouble with some walkers that had riot gear on, protecting their heads. John showed them all they had to do was lift the helmet and stab them. They felt kind of stupid for trying to swing at their heads, hitting the helmets trying to break through with their strength.

They thought they were like John who had overwhelming strength and could break through the helmet if he really tried.

When the area had been cleared, they went toward the gate that was further in and John had them open the gate only enough to let a single walker out at a time. Like this they were able to kill all the walkers that were behind that gate. After that area was cleared, they tied the fence once again because there was a door in that area, and it was unknown whether any more walkers would be able to come out from there.

Seeing as they had done quite a bit already, Rick had them take a break and rest to regain their strength. John said, "I'm going to clear cell block A, I don't need rest and securing the prison is more important."

Rick and his group nodded, seeing that John walked over to the door that led to cell block A and went inside. Once inside John pulled out his knife and began to walk down the somewhat narrow hallways, only 3 or 4 men would fit side by side. The ceiling was only around 8 feet from the ground, so it was somewhat short when John walked through the halls as a 6-foot-tall man. John did his best to stay quiet as he walked through hallway after hallway. The walkers he met would either be stabbed in the head or decapitated.

John continued to walk through the halls going into any door he saw. Many of the doors led to the cells. John had found a key on a walker that wore a guard's uniform. Making it easier for him to move throughout the cell block. John would lure the walkers to the bars and then stab them in the head. When he had finished with a room, he would drag all the bodies into a pile.

John had spent around two hours running through halls, killing walkers and moving bodies. When he walked through the last door, he saw a fenced in area. There weren't any breaches in this area but to the right, on the other side of the fence. John saw that the back of the prison had been broken, the fence was ripped out of the ground, and it looked like a bomb had hit the side of the building as there was rubble everywhere. The rubble was discolored and showed signs of burning.

Seeing this, John knew that it was cellblock B, that had a breach that would let walkers into the prison. John decided to run back out of cell block A and head back to the group. When he arrived at the recreational area, John saw Rick and his group talking to a group of prisoners. One of the prisoners had gotten angry and pulled his gun and pointed it at Rick, John seeing this and not one to take chances. So, he pulled his pistol out aimed and shot the Hispanic man right in the face, creating a "pew" sound, as a bullet casing hit the ground.

John then ran forward with his gun still out. Rick and the other people standing around were shocked for a second and then they saw John running over ti them. Rick said, "Why did you shoot him?!"

John just gave Rick a deadpan look, before saying, "He put his gun up and I didn't want one of our own injured". Rick was placated when he heard this and also understood that John had just gotten back from clearing an entire cell block by himself, so he might be a little jumpy. Rick also thought that the man was unstable and might injure or kill one of his group's members.

If John knew what Rick thought about him being jumpy, he would laugh his ass off. He shot the man because in his experience from his last life he knew the man was a murderer. John didn't like murderers, which was hypocritical because he was also a murderer, but John didn't give a shit.

When everyone had calmed down, Rick told John about a situation with Hershel losing his leg as he was bit, John hearing this just remembered about Hershel losing his leg in the show. Not liking the feeling of forgetting something important like this John frowned.

Rick seeing this misunderstood, and thought that John was angry with him, for not protecting Hershel. Just as Rick was about to apologize, he was stopped by a deep sigh, John then asked Rick to bring him to Hershel.

Now in cell block C, John saw that it was the same as the cells he had seen in cell block A. John then walked over to where he heard Maggie talking with Amy. Her voice was quivering and when she saw John, she practically jumped into his arms. If John was a smaller man, he might have even been tackled to the ground, John then comforted her, as she cried it his sturdy chest.

John looked around and saw that Beth was also crying, and she was hugging Glen. John seeing this gave Glen a sly smirk. Glen quickly noticed this, and his face became bashful. Amy walked over to John and hugged him as well, because he had been gone for quite a long time and she was getting a little worried when the other group had come back, and he had not.

Sarah was also happy to see John and she gave him her biggest and brightest smile. She was fidgeting around in Amy's arms and raised fer arms for John to pick her up. John picked her up and started to kiss her cheeks as he rubbed Maggie's back, who had now calmed down.

John stayed with his women and his little Sarah as he watched over Hershel for a while and saw that his condition was improving, and his breathing had settled into a slow and deep rhythm. John seeing this said, "He will pull through this. I have to go; I saw something unsettling when clearing cell block A. So, I'm going to check it out now, before it gets dark."

Maggie and Amy both said, "Be careful"

Sarah copied them saying, "Careful Daddy". John nodded, then he gave Maggie and Amy a quick kiss on the lips and Sarah a kiss on the cheek before he walked out of the cell. He told Rick he was going to check something he had seen from cell block A, Rick wanted to bring a group and come along with him.

John said, "Be careful of those prisoners, make sure they don't do anything stupid."

Rick nodded and watched as John went into the door that led to cell block B. John now inside the cell block, walked through the halls, killing any walkers that came after him, but John didn't clear all the rooms like last time, he went straight towards the back of the prison. When John arrived at the area that had been blown up, he summoned some construction bots from the system and told them to fix the broken areas of the prison. They quickly did so, as in 20 minutes the bots had completely fixed the damaged area and destroyed all evidence of there ever being an opening.

With that done John then went back inside, after sending the bots to Eden. John then walked through the cell block B, going door to door and clearing the walkers. When he finished, he walked to the door that led him to the recreational area. He then walked to Rick and told him that the prison was secure, and the only thing left was to clear out cell block C fully, then cell block D, E, F, G, and H.

Rick was happy about the prison being secure as he thought there might have been a breech because there were some walkers who had been wearing civilian clothes. He then had a headache at hearing how many more cell blocks were left to be cleared, but John said, "What if I clear the rest of the cell blocks by myself and kill all the walkers while you move the bodies out of the prison to be burned?"

Rick thought for a second, before he nodded and said, "Yeah, that will be good. We don't need to have any more accidents while trying to clear out the prison." John nodded and then left Rick, walking over to his family.

When it was late the group ate dinner before they went to their cells they chase and rested. John hugged his girls as they lay on the bed and then slept.