Thick Skinned | Rick Grimes

VIII - Look

The mass funeral had ended and people were now loading all of there belongings into the vehicles, trying there best to ignore Amy's screams that echoed through the camp as Dale held a lighter to her mangled elbow, in a desperate attempt to cauterise it.

Jim, on the other hand, was worse off. He had barely made it through the night as the cold-sweats and fever started to kick in his internal temperature unbearably cold but his external temperature like a hobbling, mumbling furnace.

Much to Shanes disgust, the group was going to the CDC. The Centre For Disease Control And Protection, in hope of a cure for Jim.

When the time had come for the group to leave, Morales and his family announced their departure. They wanted to find their family.

Amy was sleeping on the chairs in the rv and Jim was in the bed, with Dale driving and Carol, Andrea and Sofia to take care of them.

But some miles down the road the convoy came to a stop and Jim wad carried out.

His time was up and he wanted to rest by a tree as he died, to watch the world.

Everyone took there turn to hug him and say goodbye.

Amy walked up to him, her eyes red and her skin pale, clutching her arm she knelt down and hugged him whispering, "Thank you, im sorry i couldn't help you."

But he just smiled.

When Jo got hr turn to say goodbye she went over and stood there, unsure what to do but he motioned for her to kneel down.

So she did.

"Look" He whispered, "You trust these people, don't you. So talk to them, if you still need time then that's fine. But when you do eventually speak, they won't judge you. They will still care about you, all of them will. Even Daryl and Amy." He patted her shoulder and she nodded at her words before Daryl dropped a gun at his feet and they all drove away. Watching the sick man behind them as they left.

Those words were the words that would stay with Jo forever.

****

Hours passed and the small convoy of sad and desperate people came to halt by a large buildng surrounded by a vast parking lot, field and woods.

But it wasn't just your ordinary parking lot, no, this parking lot included burnt cars, tanks, hundreds of corpses and trash.

Slowly and cautiously, people made their way through the massacre in a single-file-line.

By the time they had reached the metal shutters wich seperated them all from the saftey of the buildings interior they were quite worried.

"Why won't it open?" Amy whispered as she shivered, wiping sweat from her forehead with a shaky arm.

Dary was carrying her with Andrea holding her back incase she was dropped.

"Shit!" Shane groaned as he dragged his hand across his face and clenched his face.

Rick pounded on the shutters, "Hey open up!"

"I told you we shoulda been go'n to fort bennet! Rick...." Shane again.

But, to top things off, the rising volume of the soon to be heated Rick v Shane argument. The dead was stumbling towards the group.

"We need to leave" Carol pulled her daughter behind her, waiting for one of the bickering men, whom seem to have both been appointed leader, to make a decision.

Suddenly Shane began to take people away and everyone else, including Rick followed him. Not wanting to become a 14-course meal.

Suddenly Rick stopped dead in his tracks and with one swift movement he spun around and raised his arm and hand in the air, pointing at something. He said only one word, "Look!"

Published Monday 20th May 2024