Rick Arrives

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Settle in, take your time, and let's see what waits in the dark 🖤

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Hershel pulled back fast.

"How did we get in here?"

"How should I know?" Evan said with an innocent shrug.

In truth, as the liquor slowly burned out of his system, fragments of the night before had started coming back.

After the party ended and everyone fell asleep, Evan had staggered out of his tent, climbed up to the second floor of Hershel's house, and hauled the sixty-something-year-old farmer out of his bedroom.

The reason was simple.

They had been having such a great drunken conversation that Evan decided Hershel needed to relive his wilder younger days.

Hershel had refused at first.

Evan, running on a body strengthened by the system, had carried him out through a second-floor window and hauled him to the barn's upper level.

"If we said we were mulching walkers, then we're mulching walkers!"

That was what Evan had apparently declared after dragging Hershel inside.

Remembering his grand speech, Evan scratched his cheek and considered announcing, on the spot, that he would never attend another party again.

After only one question, though, Hershel seemed to realize Evan had discovered the barn's secret.

The old man sighed. He said nothing. He simply led Evan out through the upper exit.

"You saw all of it?" Hershel asked once they were walking through the grass outside the barn.

"Yeah."

Evan did not press too hard. If Hershel did not remember what he had said last night, Evan could pretend the conversation had started here.

"I have my reasons," Hershel said with a sigh.

"You think they're your family," Evan said. "You think they're sick, not dead, and you want to save them."

Hershel had said as much during their earlier negotiation, so the question did not come out of nowhere.

After a long pause, Hershel nodded.

That was what he had been doing all this time.

Not just his own family. Any walkers that wandered near the farm had ended up locked in that barn.

"You put a ticking bomb beside the beds of the family still alive," Evan said, sharp and immediate.

If Hershel's thinking could not be corrected at the farm, Evan would refuse to let him into the Prison later.

That kind of belief would get everyone killed.

Without Evan or Rick, Hershel might get himself killed first. Then Maggie. Then Beth.

Walkers were corpses. Corpses were walkers.

For most people who had survived this long, that did not need explaining anymore.

Hershel said nothing under Evan's anger.

"How are they different from anything else that eats living flesh?" Evan asked.

Again, Hershel stayed silent.

It was not that he had no answer. It was that, since Evan's group arrived at Greene Farm, his beliefs had already started shifting.

Especially after last night.

That unforgettable party.

Hershel could swear that even years from now, on the day he died, he would still remember that night.

Watching Maggie and Beth smile had made him understand more than he wanted to admit.

He simply had not found the strength to make the final choice.

Evan watched him walk with his head down, hearing every word and answering none of it. Eventually, Evan let the matter drop.

Not because he had given up.

Because the timing was almost right.

Once Rick and the others reached Greene Farm, someone else would help Hershel face reality.

Shane was made for that kind of ugly work.

Only after truly facing reality would Hershel let go of the obsession in his heart.

In a world that ate people alive, everyone had their own road to walk. Step by step, people either changed into someone who could survive or they disappeared.

That included Hershel, even if one foot already seemed planted in the grave.

In this world, change was survival. It meant learning before the next mistake got someone killed. Evan had to keep changing, and so did everyone walking beside him.

By the time he finished turning it over, they had reached camp.

Andrea saw him and hurried over, checking him up and down for bite marks.

The same thing happened to Hershel.

The old man was already irritable, and now his family and the others were checking him from every side.

"Enough!" Hershel snapped, slapping Jimmy's hand away before turning to Evan.

"Less strong liquor from now on. It does our arrangement no good."

Evan knew exactly what Hershel meant by arrangement.

The partnership between the camp and the farm. If the two leaders got too close, lines could blur.

Mostly, though, Hershel was wrestling with himself. He was one step away from making the decision, but not there yet.

While they were still talking, several figures appeared near the edge of the farm.

The fire truck blocked them from view until they came closer.

"Evan?"

Rick stared at him in surprise.

So this was the farm Evan had mentioned.

Rick's eyes swept the place at once. Open sightlines, very few walkers, room to breathe. It really was an excellent temporary camp.

"Found him and Carl in the woods," Daryl murmured near Evan's ear. "Brought 'em in."

Daryl gave Evan the explanation first, a quiet sign of where his loyalty lay.

Carl hugged one of his father's arms and looked up at Evan.

"Hi, Evan."

His eyes shone with curiosity and admiration.

For a boy his age, a man like Evan, who could kill walkers by the dozen, was exactly the kind of person he wanted to understand.

What Carl wanted was simple. He wanted Evan to teach him how to kill walkers safely and effectively.

"Hey," Evan said, nodding without much expression.

Inside, he was grinning.

Rick's trip to the CDC had lasted only about a week, but Evan felt as if he had been waiting forever.

With Rick and Shane helping, taking the Prison would no longer be a fantasy.

And thanks to Evan's arrival, Daryl and Merle had found Rick and Carl before Otis ever crossed their path. Carl had been spared a gunshot wound no child should have had to endure.

"Well, well, well."

Rick had not even seen him yet, but that loud, swaggering voice told him exactly who had arrived.

Merle leaned against the fire truck with an apple in one hand, looking every bit like trouble.

"Look who finally showed. Ward said you'd be here soon, and I told him he was full of shit."

Rick frowned.

'How had Evan known they would come?'

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