"Hurry up!"
Through the remaining section of the wall that wasn't finished yet, which should have been where the new gate is. Otis stood there with a rifle in his hand while gesturing for everyone to get inside and not far from him are another group of survivors carrying abatis', a barricade to plug the unfinished section of the wall.
Rick and Glenn were the last ones to go in, and the men immediately dropped the last barricade on the ground and successfully plugged the hole.
"I hope it will hold until the herd passes." Otis said with worry while looking at the three abatis that were used to plug the fifty feet hole on the wall.
"Relax, we don't even know if it's a herd." Axel, the blonde-haired ex-convict, calmly placed his hand on Otis' shoulder to calm him down.
Otis looked over at him and clicked his tongue. "A hundred of them are already called a herd." Then he noticed his hands slightly shaking and continued. "Just focus on yourself and don't do anything stupid. There's no do over like in games if we fail to hold them off from this section of the wall."
Using his other hand to grab his shaking hand, Axel smiled slightly. "Just trying to make conversation."
Rick had all abled fighters come down before the unfinished section of the wall with various weapons on their hands since the wall is sturdy enough to stop at least a small herd of walkers.
At least that's what they are hoping for right now since the resilience of the wall hasn't been tested yet.
"How is it looking up there?" with a revolver on his right hand, Rick radioed someone on his walkie talkie.
On top of the watchtower closest to the creek, Glenn stood there alone while observing the numerous walkers coming out of the new tree line, a result of their recent logging. "I'm not sure man, but I think there's at least three hundred or so here. So, I can't say if this is actually good or bad. But what do you think? Can our group hold off this number this time?"
Rick smiled slightly while hearing those numbers from Glenn, something was clearly giving him confidence to do that in their current situation. "We can, as long as no one falters later, then we can."
He said those words aloud for everyone to hear, then he added. "This time, we have more people now and with the addition of the weapons that came from Michael and from the recent additions to the community. I think it would be no problem holding the line even in the face of twice that number."
Rick swept his eyes over the survivors and when his eyes landed on Jack, the former leader of Tom's party that Amanda and her crew rescued before. The two men gave each other a nod of acknowledgement.
"Alright, listen up. We'll deal with this problem using spears first. No guns, we don't want to attract more attention than we already have. For efficiency, we're going to rotate between two groups." While Rick is explaining the plan to them, Daryl, Carol, Oscar and his mates had come down the dirt path with small bundles of spears around their arms and started distributing the spears to the people around them.
The survivors quietly took the spears from them while T-Dog divided them into two groups. Alongside Otis, Daryl, Oscar, and many more, Rick led the first group behind the abatis wall.
Everyone stood there with bated breath as the sound of walkers slowly got closer to their location.
"Good news, the herd is just passing through..." when those words came out of the radio attached on Rick's shoulder, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and the tense nerve they had visibly relaxed while holding onto the weapon in their hands.
But such feelings only lasted for a moment following Glenn's words. "But a large portion of the herd is spilling towards your location. They'll reach you in around a minute or so. Get everyone ready. There's a lot incoming!"
Glenn warned from the tower before he also started getting ready with the sniper rifle in his hands.
Standing between the two college girls, Leona and Elise, Daryl noticed their hands growing paler while gripping the spears in their hands tight.
"Relax, the walkers move slow even a kid can take them down. They wouldn't be able to get to you with the abatis between us, just make sure to precisely strike their heads with those spears and you wouldn't need to worry about anything after that." To comfort their nervous nerves, Daryl made a short demonstration for them to see by thrusting his spear forward and quickly pulling it back.
"Just stab, then back. It's easy, right? Nothing too complicated."
"I know." Elise said while swallowing. "I'm just nervous. The last time we encountered a herd. It scared the crap out of me."
"The wall will hold, right?" Leona looked at Daryl worriedly, finally voicing out her worries about the wall they were building. "Because we built this sh*t too fast."
Daryl did not immediately answer as he pondered for a moment. "I think so. Since an architect and an engineer planned it."
"Michael just has to be missing now of all times." Elise murmured with worry and slight resentment in her tone.
Daryl just shook his head and made a mental note to look after them in case they do something stupid and get everyone killed.
"Get ready! They're coming!"
Rick shouted, and hearing his voice, the herd became even more active with how noisy they became.
"Oh crap, oh crap! That's a lot of them!" Curious to see how many were coming; Axel suddenly moved forward and stretched his body past the wall and was immediately horrified to see the wave of horror heading towards them.
Having enough of his antics, Oscar aggressively pulled him back and rebuked him. "Man, shut up! You're scaring the people with your yelling. It's not helping at all. Calm down, will you? We have more people now and more weapons. So just…so just calm down, alright?"
"I..I got it. Sorry." Axel stuttered as he also realized that his words had certainly lowered the morale of the people around him, especially those who are not used to fighting the walkers head on.
Rick was looking at them and just shook his head.
"Grahh!"
The first batch of walkers finally walked past the wall and arrived at the makeshift barrier.
When the walkers suddenly spotted the delicious food lined up at the side, they quickly charged towards them and tried to grab the nearest person, but they failed to make any splash to the scene as they got hindered by the abatis wall, and it gave Rick and the others an opportunity to deliver a death blow on their heads!
Splat!