Endure and Survive (Sequel to How We Live Now)

Chapter 25

"Walkers in D!" Glenn shouted, coming from the courtyard.

Rick was not too far behind.

"What about C?" he asked.

"It's clear!" Daryl said.

We all made our way to the adjacent building.

"Help! Help!" a little girl named Lizzie came out and said.

Carol was at her side.

"You got her?" I asked as I passed by.

"Yeah," she said.

When we got there, our people were running scared. We all split up to help them out.

"Find a cleared cell to stay in," I said to as many people as I could.

I heard screaming coming behind me. A walker was trying to take a bite out of a small kid named Luke.

"LUKE!" I shouted.

I ran over and kicked one of its legs.

"Get behind me," I said.

"I got him," Daryl said out of nowhere.

He picked him up and carried him somewhere safe. I drove my knife into the walkers' skull and recognized him as one of the cooks.

"Dammit," I said.

There was then a walker that got a hold of me. I kept it at bay while I reached for my knife and ended it. I then went upstairs to check to see if there were more up there. As soon as I reached the top, there was a walker that Glenn was struggling to kill.

"Glenn," I said.

Daryl showed up next to me.

"DOWN!" he shouted.

Glenn pushed the walker away from him and Daryl let one of his arrows fly. It was down. I went over and helped Glenn up.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. That was close," he said.

"Shit. It's Patrick," Daryl said.

"What?" I asked.

He had fallen in the cell next to us and I went over to check. There were blood trails that fell on either side of his mouth. I knelt down and took a closer look.

"What is it?" Glenn asked.

"He didn't die of a bite," I said.

"How do you know?" Rick asked, coming over to us.

I moved to the side so that they all could see.

"You see these blood trails? How they trickle down either side of his mouth?" I asked.

"Yeah," the three of them said together.

"It looks...to me it looks like he might have," I began.

"Choked on his own blood," Dr. Subramanian said, kneeling down next to me.

"He was totally fine yesterday," Glenn said.

"We need to get the council together," Dr. S said, standing up.

"He got sick and then died. We gotta make sure we contain this. We have to act quickly in order to prevent an outbreak," I said.

"Let's clear out the bodies first," Daryl said.

We all got to work in gathering the bodies and carried them outside. We were about to start burying them but Hershel came over and stopped us.