Destined to Lose: The 5th book

Chapter 17: More Death

We walk for about a half hour before Rick see's something. He points the heard out to me using hand gestures and tells me to get down. I lower myself to ground and hear scuffling. I look over from the heard to him and see Morgan standing at arms with his weapon. I slowly stand up and walk closer, to hear what they are saying. I catch on to Morgan telling Rick, "I... I'm not right."

"Maybe... Maybe you shouldn't be out" Morgan must've not heard me coming and swings his stick in my direction.

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere." He growls angrily.

I put my hands up and nod in agreement. Rick grabs his attention again, "you're out here for them." He begins to lower the weapon just a bit, "us, too." Morgan nods agreeing and he looks at me and then him, "then, we finish it, us three. Like before."

"Yea, before." I echo back in a whisper, even though I was much weaker before.

We wait for the heard to pass by, then head towards a road in front of us. We all slowly approach the truck ahead, a leg and a hand recently cut off lying on the street. Before any one of us can say something, we're being jumped and pushed to the ground. When I come to, Rick, Morgan and I are all tied up with our hands behind our backs, sitting down. Rick and Morgan next to one another and me to Morgan's right. I see Morgan and Rick both staring at the men in front of us. I focus my attention then to the captors, a few on the ground. I can see now that those are the ones with missing limbs. Bitten or injured during battle who's friends tried to save them. Only, it doesn't sound like their friends anymore from the conversation I over hear them having. One of them says, "he's right. They knew the rules. You pooch it, nobody carries you."

Another argues, "after everything we've been through?"

Someone tries to calm them all down, "things are shaky, man. Let's not..."

But he's interrupted, "look, we got the rules so somebody goin' down don't take the rest of us with them. Case in point. We could've been halfway home by now."

The one man asks, "say we make it. Huh? What then?"

Someone agrees, "he's right, Jared. What do we got waiting for us back there? Maybe we go our own way, be done with the Saviors."

"We pooched it. Simon wasn't gonna carry us." A third agrees.

"That's right." A man with long hair argues, "because we lost. But things have changed." He points over to Rick, "delivering Rick the Prick to Negan is a win. We wiped our own asses on this one, and the Big Man is gonna recognize."

"Hey. He's awake." One of them call to the rest.

"Rise and shine, curly. You ready to do some walkin'?" The long haired man comes closer to us, "Yeah. Of course you are." He directs the others, "pack it up, boys! We're ditchin' the dead weight and movin' on. This is a loose-end sort of thing, that's it. It's gonna be better for you, better for us."

He lifts a weapon to kill his own men but Rick calls out quickly, "Wait!" The man stops and turns to look, "my truck's not far. We can get 'em to the Hilltop's doctor. They could come back with us. You all could. You didn't want this. You made a split-second choice, and you chose wrong, but it's not too late. You cut us loose, you cooperate... we'll give you a fresh start." I can see some of them consider what Rick is offering, "a chance to become part of our community, to become one of us. I'm giving you my word. There's not a lot that's worth much these days, but a man's word... that's gotta mean somethin', right?"

I nod, agreeing with what Rick is saying. I don't want to keep seeing more people die. We need people. We need to end the war. The man who went to kill his friends yells at the others, "you asshats aren't dumb enough to believe that."

One of them argues, "we can hear him out. W-We could talk it over."

Rick speaks up, "thing is, there isn't time for that. There's a herd out there, close, probably headed this way. You're all gonna need to make a choice, and it's gonna have to be now."

The lanky man yells, slams his hand down, "wake up, everybody! There isn't any herd. There isn't any "deal" waiting back at Hilltop. You think these asswipes came here to save us? They came here for blood." He goes closer to Morgan, "hell, this one strangled one of his own guys to death with his own hands." He uses his hands as emphasis. I do what I can to not show them my shocked expression. "All Rick is saying here is a steaming pile of bullshit."

He is in Rick's face when we says that, and Morgan speaks up, "you know, you're right. I came here to do what I was supposed to.  To kill every last one of you." The guy points his rifle right into Morgan's face.

I speak up, as confident as I can, "you should save your bullets, 'cause you're gonna need 'em. That herd, it is comin'."

He eyes me but lowers his gun, and Morgan elaborates further, "maybe they'll hear the moans or the coughs, you know? Maybe they'll just stumble in through the open walls, but they are comin'. And then after... After, when you're just torn skin and loose teeth and blood... when you're nothing but the stuff that they didn't eat... well, that'll be a damn shame. Because there won't be a single one of you left for me to kill."

He stands and shakes his head, "we're done. Let's dump 'em and bounce." Clearly annoyed, he adds, "I want a sandwich."

Morgan continues to push, and I begin to notice why, "see, It doesn't change. It never changes. And I don't die. I don't. Nobody dies! 'Cause everybody turns!" Morgan yells loudly, wanting to get the attention of the heard. Hey! Everybody turns!"

The man lifts his gun to shoot him but someone stops him, "hey, What are you doing? You'll ruin our chances of getting back to Hilltop" someone grabs his arm to stop him.

The sound of walkers is now echoing through the walls, and the men start to panic, "Walkers! We're surrounded!"

Morgan goes on, "thing is, we've already killed you."

Another man shouts, "some coming in! Some coming in!"

The heard begins to pile into the building, and they start to try and take them out. Rick yells as loud as he can, "you're too weak to take on this herd alone. Cut us loose. Give us our weapons. We can help you!"

The man yells to everyone, "no! Nobody's cutting anybody loose! I'm killing these pricks right now.

One of the men pushes him away, and some of the others work to cut us lose, one yells "come on!"

I grab a bar stool to start with and follow everyone further into the bar. I use it to push a walker into three more behind it, when a man yells at me "hey!" I turn around in time to grab the machine gun he threw towards me.

I take it, turn back and shoot the dead coming at me. We make a small space between us, and Rick tells the guy to his side, "we're almost out. Go on ahead."

But Rick doesn't just kill the dead, him and Morgan begin to kill the men who just set us free, "what are you doing? Stop!" I try and yell, not sure what is going on. They finish taking out the other 2 before I even can try and stop them, and we continue to move back away from the dead. Morgan goes off to go after the long haired man and I stay with Rick to finish the rest.