Walking Dead Wizard

Chapter 26

"What?" Glenn managed to get the question to leave his lips without squeaking.

"At the CDC, Jenner told me, whatever it is, we all carry it," Rick admitted never once meeting anyone's eyes.

"And you never said anything?" Carol questioned Rick.

"Would it have made a difference?" Rick tried to play it off.

Harry shook his head, decided against getting involved. Of course, it would make a difference, he had no doubt quite a few people had lost a lot of respect or perhaps all respect for Rick at his duplicitous actions. He wasn't the leader, it wasn't up to him to tell them anything, he'd merely gone along for the ride. Then when Rick came along, he merely wished to see whether he could trust Rick to lead. If he was a good leader then fine, he would have had no problem going along, but unfortunately Rick was solely lacking at leadership skills. Given that it was the end of the world he'd given him chance after chance.

"You knew this whole time?" Glenn spoke, his face filled with betrayal.

"How could I have known for sure? You saw how crazy that..." Rick defended himself.

"He wasn't crazy, he'd just given up hope," Harry pointed out, not liking anyone saying anything about Jenner especially when he couldn't defend himself.

"That is not your call. Okay, when I found out about the walkers in the barn, I told for the good of everyone," Glenn was still trying to comprehend this new piece of information and toiling especially with the news that it had been kept from him.

"Well, I thought it best that people didn't know." Rick stated sharply.

Silence met his words.

"It's not safe here, we have leave," Harry said eyeing the walker that was around ten feet from them slowly making its way towards them. Well, it wasn't for long as Daryl swiftly shot it through the middle of his head in a perfect shot. He immediately stalked over to the now permanently killed walker and snatched his arrow back wiping the blood off with a rag. "This is the direction the walkers came in so it's safe to say there might be more of them."

Everyone still in a state of shock, both at Rick's pronouncement and what had just happened and the resulting conversation, made quick work of getting back into the cars. Harry and Daryl got back into Daryl's truck, Merle and Luna continued on with Merle's motorbike. Lori, Rick, Carl, Sophia and Carol slid into Carol's Cherokee, Amy, Andrea, Jimmy, T-Dog, Beth and Dale went in the RV. Maggie, Glenn and Hershel rode in Hershel's car. As it always was, Merle led the way in his motorbike, only this time he had a passenger.

They drove for what felt like days, before someone honked the horn, which was the way they'd decided on how to stop everyone - for whatever the reason. It was Rick, they soon realised as they piled out of the cars, still ominously silent. Anubis quickly dashed over the rail and did the toilet, his amber eyes on Harry the entire time.

"You out?" Hershel was the only one to speak.

"Running on fumes," Rick said, as he marched up to the front of the group.

"We can't stay here," Maggie pointed out, there was nothing but trees out here and empty road. Trees in which walkers could come out of any second, and with news that Randall had a group somewhere nearby it was little wonder she was apprehensive about staying out in the open.

"We can't all fit into one car," Glenn added, more interested in getting out of there.

"We'll make a run for gas in the morning," Rick decided.

"Spend the night here?" Carol was aghast by the suggestion, like Maggie worried about walkers and this unknown heavily armed group.

"I'm freezing!" Carl complained his teeth chittering, he had only a t-shirt on.