Finley -> Rick's Dog

t w e n t y - f i v e

We all remained inside the barn, just sitting for awhile, while waiting for Maggie and Sasha. I led leaning against Rick with my pups snuggle into me.

"Hey." Maggie said suddenly, opening the door.

"Everyone... this is Aaron." She said stepping aside to reveal a cleanly shaven man.

Everyone rushed to stand up, and held their weapons up defensively, while Max and I remained bearing my teeth, as I stood over my pups, who let out cute little growls of warning copying our actions.

"We met him outside. He's by himself. We took his weapons and we took his gear." Maggie said, while Daryl very viciously patted Aaron down checking for weapons.

I took a few small steps forward, as Max stepped closer to my growling pups.

I hung my head lower, and lowered my whole body closer to the ground, silently taking steps forwards.

I stopped about a metre away, and let out a subtle growl, causing Aaron to cast a quick glance down to me with a slight hint of worry in his eyes.

"Hi." Aaron said finally speaking up.

Not even a second later Judith let out loud cries, and Rick kept an emotionless face, giving Judith to Carl.

I edged forwards a few steps, as my growling ceased. I took a few small sniffs, and I could tell that he intend to kill us.

"It's nice to meet you." Aaron said politely.

"You said he had a weapon?" Rick asked, examining his gun, before putting it in his belt.

"There something you need?" Rick asked the man who stood basically towering over me.

"He has a camp nearby. He wants us to audition for membership." Sasha says answering for him.

"I wish there was another word. Audition makes it sound like we're some kind of a dance troupe. That's only on Friday nights. Um, and it's not a camp. It's a community. I think you all would make valuable additions. But it's not my call. My job is to convince you all to follow me back home. I know. If I were you, I wouldn't go either. Not until I knew exactly what I was getting into." Aaron said pausing to look at Sasha. "Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack?"

She pulled it off her back, handing it over to Rick who grabbed it.

"Front pocket, there's an envelope. There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologize in advance for the picture quality. We just found an old camera store last-"

"Nobody gives a shit." Daryl grunted cutting Aaron off.

"You're absolutely 100% right." Rick pulled out a stack of photos, and I didn't bother to look at them because I knew this guy was genuine.

"That's the first picture I wanted to show you because nothing I say about our community will matter unless you know you'll be safe. If you join us, you will be. Each panel in that wall is a 15-foot-high, 12-foot-wide slab of solid steel frame by cold-rolled steel beams and squared tubing. Nothing alive or dead gets through that without our say-so. Like I said, security is obviously important. In fact, there's only one resource more critical to our community's survival... the people. Together we're strong. You can make us even stronger. The next picture, you'll see inside the gates. Our community was first construc-"

Aaron was cut off by Rick stomping over and socking the poor man in the jaw, with so much force he came flying to the ground, landing on my back leg. I let out a yelp, and a loud threatening growl at Rick, before  I basically snorted, and sassily walked off while they continued to chat.