Kneel

New chapter is live.

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

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Elsewhere, as the sun went down, more than a dozen figures stood outside the metal fence of the Prison.

In the last light of day, they stared at the compound with different expressions on their faces.

"This is... the Prison?"

The Prison.

Maggie could not help taking two steps forward.

Facing the fences and walls, her eyes lit up.

The same look appeared in the eyes of many women in the group, especially those with children beside them.

They looked at the Prison as if, in that instant, they had seen the future.

Not only their own future.

Their children's too.

Nearby, Rick bent over with both hands on his knees.

His pale shirt was already soaked through with sweat. Drops slid down from his hair and fell to the ground.

Even so, he kept his head raised.

His steady gray-blue eyes stayed fixed on the Prison and refused to move away.

Tight fencing all the way around.

A wide, flat stretch of open ground.

A massive living area built from concrete.

Even each room inside had a metal door for protection.

"This... this could be a second CDC," Rick murmured.

The sight of the Prison had gone beyond his expectations.

That surprise hit him as hope.

They could finally have a place to settle.

They could survive inside the Prison without living every day and night in fear of walkers.

Suddenly, Rick looked back.

He glanced at Lori, then at Shane.

All three seemed to see the same joy and shock in one another's eyes.

"Evan was right."

Hershel came forward shakily, his mouth slightly open.

Just as Evan had said, compared with Greene Farm, this place was brick and steel.

Even if a horde came, people living here could respond with order instead of panic.

If the outer fence fell as the first line of defense, they could still retreat into the cellblocks and protect everyone.

Looking at the joy on his daughters' faces, and on the faces of the people who had worked his land, Hershel felt a sudden rush of gratitude.

He was grateful that, on that night, he had not clung stubbornly to the farm.

He was old.

His daughters had only just grown up.

The Prison was the better place for them to grow into whatever came next.

And beyond the walls, there were Rick, Shane, Evan, Daryl, and the other people holding the group together.

As long as people like them remained, the group could move toward a better tomorrow with structure and purpose.

Thinking of that, Hershel's bent back straightened a little.

The exhaustion from the road seemed to fall off his shoulders.

A small sob sounded.

Carol was crying.

But her flushed face could not hide her joy.

She gripped Sophia's hand, her heart full of excitement she could not suppress.

For some people, family was the thing that kept them standing.

For some, it was their children.

For others, the only pillar they had was themselves.

Their anchors had always been different.

But in that moment, the Prison became an anchor for all of them.

Just looking at it pushed back some of the fear they had been carrying.

For a moment, it almost felt as if civilization had returned.

Their thoughts were not the same, but hope took root in all of them.

They began imagining the life that would come after they took the Prison.

Then, in the next second, silent and sudden, the muzzle of a gun touched the back of T-Dog's head at the rear of the group.

Feeling the cold metal against his skull, T-Dog slowly raised both hands.

Before he could speak, a deep male voice sounded behind him.

"What the hell are you people?"

The sudden voice jolted everyone out of their brief ease.

Rick's heart lurched.

Then he spun, hand dropping toward his holster.

Behind him, Shane reacted just as fast.

"Ah, ah-ah."

Before either man could draw, several figures appeared behind the group.

One gun was aimed directly at Lori.

Rick and Shane both slowed.

"If I were you, I wouldn't do that."

The speaker stood around six-foot-one, broad and tall, with faint red blotches across his face.

He wore the stained uniform of a corrections officer.

Rick kept his expression steady as his hand continued inching toward his side.

"Are you prison guards?"

"We don't need to make this tense. I'm a sheriff's deputy from King County. I brought my people here looking for shelter."

"You can lower the guns, and we can sit down and-"

Bang.

Rick did not get to finish.

A bullet struck the dirt beside his foot and kicked up dust.

"Maybe you don't understand me," the man said. "I said kneel."

The tall man in the bloodstained corrections uniform stepped forward and pointed his gun at Lori's head.

He stared straight at Rick.

Then he grabbed Carl away from Lori and clamped one large hand around the boy's thin arm.

"OK. OK."

With Lori and Carl under their guns, Rick had no choice.

He raised both hands, locked them behind his head, and knelt on the ground.

Without making it obvious, Rick met Shane's eyes.

The veins at Shane's temple jumped.

Rick gave the smallest shake of his head.

They had arrived in a hurry and let their guard down for a moment.

They had never expected people to still be here.

The Prison was crawling with walkers.

The people inside should have turned by now.

"That's better."

The man grinned.

He walked forward and slammed the butt of his pistol into Rick's face.

Rick hit the ground hard.

Blood ran from his nose.

The man dragged him roughly to the side of the road and pressed the gun to his forehead.

"Now tell me what you came here for."

Rick forced himself through the dizziness.

The world seemed to tilt around him, but he still managed to speak.

"The prison. That's all. We didn't come for you."

"I have old people. Children. We need a place with concrete over our heads."

"Hoh."

The man looked back at his companions and laughed.

"The deputy here says he's taking his people into the prison."

His mocking words brought laughter from the others.

The man laughed with them, then abruptly stopped.

He looked down at Rick coldly.

"What kind of joke is that?"

"It takes three to five bullets to kill one walker. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, inside that prison. You think people like you can clear it?"

To him, Rick was wasting his time.

He was a corrections officer from the Prison.

If the place could be taken, he would have taken it with the others already.

Why wait for Rick's group?

"Knives. Melee weapons," Rick said, raising his head to meet the man's eyes. "They don't draw walkers the way gunfire does. The prison can still be cleared."

The man's earlier words suddenly told Rick exactly what he was looking at.

A coward.

A coward leading a pack of cowards.

If they had escaped the Prison, they had probably done it by abandoning other people.

They were sitting beside a treasure vault and still did not dare take it.

Never mind the inside.

They had not even cleared the yard.

The fear brought by the apocalypse and the walkers had already swallowed them whole.

All bark.

Hollow inside.

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