Chapter 20

Author note at the end. Enjoy.

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The convoy of vehicles rumbled down the dark country road, headlights cutting through the night as they approached the Greene farm. Shawn led the way with his truck, with Kenny beside him and Shane in the back. The rest of the group followed in a mismatched parade of cars and RV, their occupants tense with exhaustion and worry.

As they pulled up to the farmhouse, the front door burst open. Rick emerged, his face a mixture of relief and anxiety as he scanned the arriving vehicles. Hershel stood on the porch, his expression wary as he took in the number of newcomers.

Shane was the first out of the truck, rushing to meet Rick. "How's Carl?" he asked urgently. "Stable, for now," Rick replied, his voice hoarse with fatigue, while his eyes darted to the other eyes behind Shawn's truck.

As if on cue, Lori stumbled out of one of the cars, her eyes wild with fear. "Rick!" she cried, running towards her husband. They collided in a fierce embrace, both of them trembling with emotion.

"He's alive, Lori," Rick murmured into her hair. "Our boy's alive."

The rest of the group began to emerge from their vehicles, looking around uncertainty at their new surroundings. Dale helped T-Dog out of the RV, the man's face glistening with sweat from his infected wound.

Hershel descended from the porch, his face set in a grim expression. "I see you've brought more than we expected," he said to Shane, glancing to his eldest son who grimaced a little, his tone neutral but with an undercurrent of concern.

Shane nodded, running a hand through his hair. "I know it's a lot to ask, but we've got wounded. T-Dog here," he gestured to the man leaning heavily on Dale, "he's got a bad infection."

Hershel's expression softened slightly. "Was he bitten?" The old man asked and Shane shook his head. "We'll take a look."

As Dale and Shane helped T-Dog towards the house, Hershel turned to address the rest of the group. "We'll sort out sleeping arrangements shortly. For now, please stay near the house and vehicles. It's not safe to wander in the dark."

Inside the house, Alex had been roused by the commotion while on the second floor, Beth had also woken up. He stood in the hallway, still pale from his earlier blood donation, as T-Dog was brought in.

"What happened?" Alex asked, moving to help support T-Dog's other side. Hershel led them to a spare room, where they laid T-Dog on the bed. The man was barely conscious, his skin hot to the touch and his breathing labored.

"Alex, go rest," Hershel said, already moving to gather supplies. "I'll take care of here." But Alex shook his head. "I can help." He insisted but Hershel turned to him with a gaze that made the young man pause. "Don't me repeat myself, son. If you want to help. Go back to sleep."

With that, Hershel went back to his new task. Alex stood there, before leaving the room awkwardly. Annette, with her daughters, also came downstairs to the living room. "What happened?" The older woman asked, while warily staring at Dale, with commotion outside.

"I'm not sure. New group, I'm thinking." He answered, getting dizzy a little, as he leaned on a wall.

Her eyes softened, "Why don't you go back to resting?" She took him by his arm, giving him to Beth. "Send him to Shawn's room."

"I- I'm fine. I got my-" Alex weakly protested, but Beth, with a smile, quickly guided him upstairs and to Shawn's room, for him to rest in quiet place. Not letting him talk or listen to him. Meanwhile, Annette and Maggie went to the kitchen, as Dale left the house, to prepare some light meal. But when she opened the fridge, she could only sigh. They were running out of food very quickly.

A moment later, Rick and Lori entered the house and had gone straight to Carl's room, where they now sat vigil by their son's bedside. The boy was pale and still, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.

"He looks so small," Lori whispered, her hand gently stroking Carl's hair. Rick squeezed her shoulder. "He's strong. He'll pull through this."

Outside, Kenny had taken charge of organizing the vehicles and setting up a temporary watch rotation. "We need eyes on all approaches," he told Daryl and Shane. "Even if this place seems safe, we can't take any chances with all the noises we've made so far."

As the night wore on, the farmhouse became a hive of subdued activity. People found corners to curl up if they didn't have a seat, exhaustion finally overtaking anxiety. Hushed conversations could be heard as the two groups began to mingle, sharing their stories and what they've encountered so far.

And once discussions were over, and with nightwatch shifts made, everyone moved out orderly. Kenny and his family decided to stay at their RV after they had cleaned it up thoroughly. Shawn shared his room with Glenn since they were the pair for night shift after Daryl and Shane from middle of the night till dawn.

Though the older man was surprised to find Alex on his floor, already passed out, which Beth explained that he insisted on not taking the bed.

Carley, Lee, and Clementine took the living room, while Dale, and T-Dog, after taking some antibiotics, took the owner's room. Hershel and his wife settled in their daughter's room. Daryle and Shane took the first night's watch.

As dawn broke over the Greene farm, the new day bringing them more time with both hope and fear. The first rays of sunlight filtered through the windows, casting a warm glow over the exhausted survivors scattered throughout the house and surrounding area.

In Carl's room, Rick stirred from his uncomfortable position in the chair beside his son's bed. Lori was curled up on a small cot nearby, her face etched with worry even in sleep. Rick leaned forward, gently placing a hand on Carl's forehead. To his relief, the boy's skin felt cooler than it had the night before.

"Dad?" Carl's weak voice broke the morning silence. Rick's heart leapt. "I'm here, son. I'm right here," he said softly, squeezing Carl's hand. The commotion roused Lori, who was instantly at Carl's side. "Oh, baby," she whispered, tears of relief streaming down her face.

As the family shared their emotional moment, activity began to pick up around the farm. In the kitchen, Maggie and Beth were already preparing breakfast for the expanded group, the smell of cooking eggs spread through the house.

Outside, Glenn and Shawn were finishing up their watch shift, both men looking haggard from the long night. "Anything?" Daryle asked, coming from the barn. Though he was warily looking at the rooster.

Shawn shook his head. "All quiet. Not even a pip."

"That rooster will kill us all." Daryle spoke, as he turned to Glenn and Shawn, both looking at him weirdly, with Shane also storming out of the house as the rooster did its call. "What do you mean?" Glenn asked.

Now, it was their turn to be looked weirdly by Shane and Daryle, who both looked like they wanted to sprint to the chicken coop and kill it. "I mean, they'll bring geeks!" Daryle hissed in alarm. "You better shut it up!"

"But it doesn't." Shawn answered, jumping down from the top of Dale's RV. "Alex, the one who helped with Carl, he tested it."

"What?" Shane asked, as if he hadn't heard it, before chuckling in disbelief.

Shane's face hardened, his hand moving towards his holstered gun. "We can't take that risk. That noise will draw walkers for miles."

"Hold on," Glenn interjected, stepping between Shane and the direction of the chicken coop. "Shawn just said it doesn't attract them. We can't just kill it without-"

"Without what?" Shane snapped. "Waiting for a herd to show up? We need to deal with this now." Daryl nodded in agreement, his crossbow at the ready. "Better safe than sorry. One rooster ain't worth all our lives."

Shawn's expression darkened. "You're not touching that rooster. This is our farm, our animals. You don't get to make those decisions. Especially, when we invited you and helped you. You're guests here." He reminded them.

The argument quickly devolved into a shouting match, with Shane and Daryl on one side, Shawn and Glenn on the other. The commotion drew attention from the house and the other vehicles.

Rick burst out of the farmhouse, followed closely by Hershel and Lee. From the RV, Kenny emerged. "What the hell is going on out here?" Kenny demanded, his voice cutting through the argument.

Shane turned to his partner, gesturing angrily towards the chicken coop. "Rick, that rooster is a danger to all of us. We need to get rid of it before it brings every walker in the county down on our heads."

Hershel stepped forward, his face set in a stern expression. "Now hold on just a minute. This is my farm, and those are my animals. You don't get to decide what happens to them." Kenny moved to stand beside Shawn and Glenn. "They're right. We've been here for days, and that rooster hasn't brought any trouble. You can't just start killing animals because you're paranoid."

Lee, ever the voice of reason, tried to calm the situation. "Look, everyone needs to take a step back and breathe. We're all on edge, but we can't start fighting amongst ourselves. Especially not right now."

The tension remained high, with both sides glaring at each other. Shawn, his patience wearing thin due to the sleepless night, spoke up. "Listen, if you have such a problem with our animals, maybe you should just pack up and leave. This is our home, and we're not going to let you dictate how we live here."

His words hung in the air. The group that had just arrived the night before shifted uncomfortably, aware of their precarious position. Out of need, Rick stepped between the two groups. "Shane, Daryle, please." he said firmly. "We need to work together here."

Turning back to Glenn, Shawn, and Hershel, Rick grimaced when the rooster finally finished its call. His eyes darted to anything around the fense and outside of it but found no walkers or geeks as his group called them. "Shane has a point, sir."

"You're wrong." Shawn replied with Rick getting confused due to the certainty he was seeing in all three's expression. Seeing that they were ready to listen with Rick's presence, Shawn continued. "Before you got here, Alex conducted an experiment with a walker we had tied up. He tested different sounds, including animal noises. The walker didn't react to the rooster at all."

"Then I'm here to tell you that you're wrong." Rick calmly refuted, making the three men frown, while Shane was pacing behind Rick, while Daryle twitched, crossbow loaded.

"In Atlanta, I lost a horse because its noise attracted a whole herd. It's the only reason I'm still alive, because it distracted all of them, as I hid. They ate the poor thing down to its bone. We can't risk that happening here."

The tension in the air thickened as Rick's words sank in. The two groups stood facing each other, the divide between them suddenly seeming much wider than just a few feet of farmyard.

Hershel stepped forward, his expression a mix of sympathy and determination. "We understand your concern, Rick. What happened in Atlanta must have been terrifying. But I can't make this decision without talking about it first."

"What is there to talk about?" Daryle asked, barely restraining himself from going there and already doing it.

And as if he was called, Alex slowly walked up to them, a look of wary and surprise on his pale face as he looked at the stranger. Shane and Rick, seeing it, respectfully greeted him as he did to them, before doing the same to Hershel, Shawn, and Glenn. "You look like shit." He shot to the Korean with a grin, and Glenn shot back. "Me? Please, you look like you're a step away from grave."

Though the banter didn't help much with the situation, it did make the tension around the two group disappear. Daryle squinted at the new guy, his expression guarded, then with a smirk, "Who's this? A stray you picked up on the way?" He taunted towards Shawn and Glenn, though they simply raised their eyebrows in question.

Alex, meanwhile, made a face as if the words didn't make sense, his grin sharp and unimpressed. "Stray? That's rich coming from a guy who looks like he's been rolled in dirt and left out to dry. Don't worry, I'm up-to-date on my shots."

.

.

.

Rick and Shane tried their best to stop their surprised, but amused laughs, Glenn and Shawn instead did it freely. Even Hershel smiled at the comeback. Daryle stepped towards Alex, but Rick, with a grin, put his arm in front of him. "Please."

Kenny and Lee, seeing that they weren't needed, decided to do their own things until breakfast instead of staying around, not contributing anything.

"Anyway, what's wrong?" Alex asked, glancing to everyone. Instead, Daryle gestured towards the chicken coop. Alex followed Daryl's gesture towards the chicken coop, his brow furrowing in confusion. "The chickens? What about them?"

Rick stepped forward, his expression serious. "Alex, we're concerned about the rooster. The noise it makes... in Atlanta, I saw firsthand how animal sounds can attract walkers. We lost a horse to a herd because of it."

Alex's eyes widened in understanding. "Ah, I see. You're worried about the rooster attracting walkers. Have they told you the experiment I conducted on the walker a few days ago?"

"Yeah, but animals DO attract walkers." Shane corrected with Alex's relaxed posture turning tense. "What? But we've been here days, there hasn't been any walkers other than my second day here."

Daryl, who had been listening intently, spoke up. "Could be you just got lucky so far."

Instead, Alex shook his head, "I made sure." He murmured, though skin still pale, his eyes looked focused. "I even brought it near its jaw and it didn't try to bite it."

"And like I said, you all might have been lucky so far. I've seen walkers eat my hunts." Daryle continued, stepping to Rick's side, who nodded. "And in Atlanta, I was on a horse and surrounded. The only reason I'm still alive is because it made too much noise as they tore it to shred that I could escape."

Alex fell silent, his brow furrowing as he processed this new information. The confidence he had in his experiment began to waver as memories of past encounters flashed through his mind. His eyes slowly grew wider as he remembered.

He remembered the walker in Clementine's neighborhood, the one that had figured out how to use a doorknob. Then there was the walker in the drugstore in Macon, the one that had managed to unlock the bathroom door.

A cold realization washed over him. What if the walker he had experimented on was like those? What if it had been one of the "smart" ones?

The color drained from Alex's face, and he swayed slightly on his feet. Rick, noticing his sudden pallor, reached out to steady him. "Hey, you alright?"

Alex's voice was barely above a whisper when he spoke. "I... I think I made a mistake. And a grave one." Hershel stepped closer, concern etched on his face. "What do you mean, son?"

Alex looked up, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and realization. "The walker I experimented on... it might not have been a typical one. I've seen walkers before that were... different. Smarter. What if..."

He trailed off, the implications of his words hanging heavy in the air. Shane and Daryl exchanged glances, their earlier aggression replaced by grim satisfaction.

"Smart walkers?" Rick asked confusedly, as Shane and Daryle listened attentively. "yeah, ones who- who learn. Or know what to do in certain cases." Alex replied, gulping.

"Like knowing how to use the doorknobs, or learn how to unlock bathroom doors, or-"

"Use rocks to break glass doors." Rick interrupted him, eyes also going wide. "You've met them?" Alex nodded gravely. "Yeah… We lost one-" Alex grimaced and corrected himself, "Three people due to it and even more if we weren't careful."

Hershel, noticing Alex's deteriorating condition, spoke up. "Let's continue this inside. You look like you need to sit down."

As they made their way towards the house, Alex's mind raced. The potential consequences of his mistake was much bigger than he thought. 'We were really lucky...' Once inside, he turned to Hershel, his voice low and urgent.

"Sir, I think... I think we need to reconsider the rooster. If there's even a chance it could attract walkers, we can't risk it. Not with everyone's lives at stake." Hershel's expression was pained, but he nodded slowly. "I understand." Though Shawn was already on it. "I'll do it before noon. For lunch."

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Author Note:

last chapter for the day.

I also have kinda an announcement. Next week, I have a couple of meetings regarding my last project for college, and then the week after that, we have to start internship. Meaning, updates will be getting slower though I will try my best to at least update once with 5k words, instead of 3 chapters per day with at least 2.5k words.

Anyway, I added another small cute moment for Beth/Alex, while tried to settle the two groups and slowly unite them as one. I really hope I'm doing that well. What do you all think so far about that?

As I watched the first episode 1 yesterday and saw the horse scene, I knew I kinda fucked up with the rooster experiment. So, I tried to fix it here and give it a reason as to why Alex came to a different conclusion. Hopefully, that makes up for it.

I honestly like this because it shows to others that Alex's knowledge or expertise isn't completely reliable. Just because he says something about the walkers, doesn't mean it is true. Lives could be lost with that wrong information.

I wanted to "punish" Alex for concluding on a wrong information by taking out someone, like getting bitten or mauled due to letting their guard down. But it was hard to find a way to make it work in the plot, so I simply left it behind.

Side note, I really liked the end of episode 1 season 1 of the show. The parallels of Rick and Morgan. One easily killing a walker after waking up in the middle of it and accepts it with the help of the other. While the other struggles, even when he has more knowledge than Rick, simply because the walker he faces is his late wife. Really liked the symbolism.

Anyway, that's all I have to say. Hope you all liked it.

Stay safe.

Author out.

PS: Be gentle with spoilers lol. I didn't care about Walking Dead before this so know almost nothing but Rick, the black samurai woman, Carl, and Morgan? Megam? The guy that kills Glenn. That's all I know. SPOILER MEMES

PSS: If tomorrow, we can get to 50 power stones. I will upload 3 chapters of 4k words instead of 2.5/3k the day after. So, up to you. Currently, it's 34.