Chapter 36 Changes at the Farm Over the Past Seven Days

Rain had been falling over Hershel’s farm for most of the day, turning the sky a deep gray-blue and washing away the bright warmth that had covered the property only a week earlier.

Under normal circumstances, everyone would have welcomed weather like this because the rain masked noise, filled storage containers, and provided water that could be boiled for drinking or used on the crops.

Today, however, nobody laughed or talked much.

The steady patter against tents, vehicles, and the farmhouse only made the silence feel heavier.

Everyone in camp stayed busy, but the mood had changed completely.

Andrea lay prone on the roof of the RV with a scoped rifle, keeping watch across the open fields while the others worked below.

Even the sound of people moving around had become subdued, as though the entire camp was afraid to speak too loudly about what had been hanging over them for days.

Then Andrea suddenly shifted behind the scope and raised her voice through the rain.

“Someone’s coming!

Motorcycle, but I can’t tell who it is!” The reaction was immediate.

Rick rushed out first, with Shane, Merle, T-Dog, and several others right behind him, each already expecting bad news.

They carried mostly hand weapons rather than relying on firearms in the downpour, and Rick drew a long machete from his belt while squinting toward the approaching motorcycle.

Only when the rider came within roughly fifty yards did his shoulders finally relax.

“Put the weapons down!

It’s Daryl!” The tension around the camp eased slightly, but Rick was already moving before Daryl even stopped the bike.

He threw on a rain jacket and jogged across the wet ground toward him, his attention fixed completely on the hunter’s face.

“Did you find anything?” Rick asked before Daryl could even catch his breath.

“Tracks, tire marks, anything at all?” Seven days had passed since Magnus took Carl away from the farm for training.

Seven days.

Neither of them had returned once.

Rick had initially told himself that Magnus probably wanted to keep Carl away from camp so the boy wouldn’t fall back into old habits, but by the fourth day, that explanation stopped being enough.

Magnus was capable, but capable people still died every day, and walkers were no longer the only threat in Georgia.

Other survivors were moving through the area too, and some of them were far more dangerous than the dead.

On the fourth day, Rick organized a search.

They found nothing.

By the sixth day, the rain had started and never really stopped.

Lori’s anxiety turned into exhaustion, then fever after spending too much time outside in the cold looking for her son.

She now lay inside the camp in a half-conscious haze, repeatedly calling Carl’s name whenever she drifted between sleep and waking.

Carol and Shane had taken turns caring for her.

Shane, however, rarely left.

Whatever distance Lori had tried to create between them before Rick returned seemed to matter less and less to him as the days passed.

His worry for both Lori and Carl had become impossible to hide, and anyone watching closely could see it.

Whether that concern came purely from loyalty to Rick’s family or from the feelings Shane had never really let go of was something nobody wanted to discuss.

Daryl shut off the motorcycle and climbed down.

Rainwater ran off his hair and crossbow.

“Nothing,” he said quietly.

Rick’s expression fell.

“Rain’s too heavy.

Tracks are gone.” Daryl walked toward camp without looking at anyone for long.

Of everyone there, he knew the woods best, and he could follow signs that most people wouldn’t even notice.

If Daryl couldn’t find Magnus and Carl after days of searching, there were only a few possibilities left.

Maybe they had gone farther than expected.

Maybe they had changed direction.

Or maybe something had happened.

Nobody wanted to say the last possibility aloud.

Losing Carl would destroy Lori.

It might destroy Rick too.

And losing Magnus at the same time would mean the group also lost the man who had found their future base, gathered massive amounts of supplies, rescued Sophia, and given everyone a sense that they were actually moving toward something instead of just running.

In only one week, the farm had gone from being filled with cautious hope to feeling like a place where everyone was waiting for bad news.

The Greene family wasn’t doing any better.

Their grief came from something else.

Two days after Magnus and Carl left, Shane noticed Glenn acting unusually secretive around the barn.

Glenn had been trying to hide what he knew, but Shane eventually followed the trail and discovered the truth: Hershel had been keeping dozens of walkers locked inside.

That revelation changed everything.

Shane had absolutely no intention of sleeping within walking distance of a barn filled with the dead.

One walker near camp was already unacceptable to him.

Thirty or forty was insanity.

Arguments followed.

Hershel tried to explain that the people inside were sick, not dead, while Shane responded with the same brutal logic Magnus had used before leaving.

The words kept returning to him over and over again: talking about principles doesn’t stop a walker when it’s already in front of you.

Eventually, Shane stopped arguing.

He grabbed the Remington shotgun.

Then he opened the barn.

The first blast brought everyone running.

The second the walkers started pouring through the doors, nobody had time to debate anything anymore.

Rick, Shane, Daryl, Merle, Andrea, Glenn, T-Dog, and the others raised their weapons and began putting them down one by one while Hershel’s family stood frozen nearby.

By the time the last body hit the ground, the secret Hershel had been protecting was gone.

The silence afterward was worse than the gunfire.

Nobody celebrated.

Nobody blamed Shane either.

Even Hershel could no longer fully pretend that the bodies lying in front of the barn were still his wife, Beth’s mother, neighbors, or friends.

Whatever they had once been, they had rushed from the barn trying to tear apart anyone within reach.

That truth hurt, but Hershel finally saw it without the shield of denial he had carried for so long.

He seemed to age years in only a few days.

By the end of the week, the stubborn veterinarian who had once argued with Magnus about every walker was gone.

Hershel spent longer periods sitting alone and speaking less, his face carrying a permanent exhaustion that hadn’t been there before.

Eventually, he approached Rick with the question nobody else wanted to ask.

“Magnus still hasn’t come back,” Hershel said quietly.

“Carl’s still missing too.” He glanced toward the wet fields around the farm.

“Do we keep waiting here, or do we follow the plan and head toward the prison?” Rick answered immediately.

“We keep looking.” There was no hesitation.

“If it takes another day, we search another day.

If it takes a month, then we search for a month.” Rick stepped closer, lowering his voice.

“If they’re alive, we bring them home.

If they aren’t…

then I’m not leaving without knowing.” Hershel held his gaze.

Rick’s words were strong.

His eyes weren’t.

The same exhaustion and fear visible throughout the camp had reached him too, no matter how hard he tried to keep it buried.

He was holding everyone together because somebody had to, but Carl’s absence was eating away at him from the inside.

Only Shane still seemed to possess some of his old energy.

As long as Lori was alive, he still had something he refused to give up on.

Another day passed.

Evening settled slowly over the farm while the rain finally began to weaken.

The clouds broke apart in places, leaving only a steady dripping from the trees, rooftops, and RV awning as darkness spread across the fields.

Rick sat alone on top of the RV.

His Colt Python rested in his hand.

He had stopped pretending nobody could see him.

Cold rainwater slid down his face, blending with the tears that had finally broken free.

Rick lowered his head and silently cried for the son he had been unable to find, shoulders trembling beneath the wet jacket.

For several minutes, there was nothing around him except the sound of water dripping from metal.

Then an engine broke through the silence.

Rick froze.

He slowly lifted his head.

Far across the field, headlights appeared through the fading rain.

A large vehicle was coming toward the farm.

Something almost as big as a bus.

Rick stared.

Then he stood.