Shambles- The Walking Dead [Alden x Maggie] [1/2]

42- To fail

"The wall's down!" Tara yelled. She was the closest to the breach out of everyone. "They're getting in!" She fired her gun at the walkers streaming in, switching to her knife when the clip ran out.

"Rose, guard the children and injured inside. Make sure Mika's with you too." Maggie ordered quickly. "Everyone else; defend that breach!"

Maggie got her own gun out and managed to get about nine headshots in before her clip ran out. Alden tossed a spear to Tara; it would serve her better than her knife. He joined besides her and together they went crazy on the walkers invading their home. It didn't take long before they had created a small mount of corpses in front of them. Dianne and Yumiko climbed to a higher vantage point to land their shots better.

Everyone that could fight was doing their part. And in the middle of that chaos a convoy from Alexandria arrived. Maggie barely noticed them join in on the fight, there was simply too much going on to even register what was going on. She only realized that they were there when Judith and Michonne were right next to her, taking walkers out with their katana's. And most others were alerted when Carl's gunshots rang out. When his clip ran out he joined the fight with his machete. He sliced through the walkers with ease.

Fighting of the walkers took ages and ages. And Alden was already exhausted because he hadn't slept in the past two days. He could feel how weak and tired he was with each thrust of his spear. It was getting heavier and heavier in his hands and he was only getting slower and slower. He was no longer fighting side to side with Tara. She was a couple paces away from him to his left.

Hershel had been patiently waiting for as long as he could manage. He had listened when Rose told him that he needed to stay inside. But now it was taking too long and he knew he could help. He had his gun. It was for emergencies only. The wall falling down seemed like an emergency to him. He used the back door in the kitchens to sneak out and ran around the back of the manor to the breach.He was there just in time to see Alden fumble on his step and fall down on his back. And once on the ground he struggled to get a walker off of him.

With trembling hands Hershel freed his gun from the holster on his waistband. Alden was about to get eaten and if he missed his shot he'd be dead. He would've failed. And he couldn't fail. He couldn't fail.

He held his gun up and aimed for the walker snapping its jaws at the only father he had ever known. "Dad!" He yelled out loudly when he fired his gun. The gunshot rang out and turned the walkers toward himself, following the sound. In the darkness he wasn't able to tell if he had landed his shot. Or if he had failed.

The walkers, the monsters, inched towards him, snapping their rotting jaws at him. They blocked his view of Alden. And now Hershel was nothing more than the scared eight year old boy he actually was. There were more walkers here than he had ever seen together, and they were all coming for him. He fired shot after shot at their heads, each shot ringing out louder than the last one in his ears. Tears streamed down his face. An arm wrapped around his waist from behind and he screeched like death itself when he was lifted off the ground.

"Hershel, it's me. It's mom." Maggie said as calmly as she could manage. She pulled him away from the approaching walkers, leaving the others to deal with it because her son needed her now.

"No! No! No!" He objected as soon as she set him down. He tried to run back towards the walker; he wanted to know if he failed or not. She took a hold of both his shoulders and went to one knee to be on his level. She looked at him, concerned, when he rambled out an incomprehensible slew of words.

"Hey, calm down." She hushed him, forcing him to look at her in the hopes of getting through to him. And Hershel finally seemed to calm down somewhat. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay inside."