Chapter 37 Back at Camp!

“What’s that sound?” someone shouted from below the RV.

Another voice followed almost immediately.

“Rick, is somebody coming?” The entire camp stirred at once as Rick tightened his grip on the Colt Python and stared into the darkness from the RV roof, trying to make out the large vehicle approaching through the wet fields.

Then Rick moved.

He stood so quickly that the revolver slipped from his hand and hit the RV roof behind him, but he didn’t even look back.

Ignoring the darkness, the slick ground, and whatever danger might have been coming toward the farm, Rick jumped down and started running toward the approaching engine.

Nothing else mattered in that moment.

“Rick?

Hey, Rick!” Merle had just returned from another sweep around the tree line when Rick rushed past him.

He stared after the man for half a second, muttered something about him losing his damn mind, then turned around and followed with his rifle in hand.

Daryl and several others quickly moved after them, unwilling to let Rick charge blindly into the dark by himself.

Inside one of the tents, Lori slowly opened her eyes.

“What…

what happened?” Her face was pale, her lips almost colorless from the fever that had kept her bedridden for the better part of two days.

The sudden noise around camp had dragged her out of another restless sleep, and before she could sit up properly, Carol crawled inside and pressed a hand against her forehead.

“Rick suddenly took off toward the road,” Carol explained.

“Daryl, Merle, and the others went after him.” Carol sighed as she pulled the blanket higher around Lori.

Magnus had been gone for seven days, and she had spent most of that time thinking about how she would thank him when he returned.

Saving Sophia had given Carol something back that she had believed was already lost, yet now even someone as capable as Magnus seemed to have vanished into the same world that had swallowed so many others.

The thought had left her with a familiar, exhausted sadness.

Lori suddenly tried to stand.

Carol caught her arm.

“What are you doing?” “Carl…” Lori barely seemed to hear her.

“Carl…” She stumbled toward the tent opening despite Carol trying to hold her back.

Her unfocused eyes remained fixed on the darkness outside, almost as if she could already hear her son calling her from somewhere beyond the rain.

“Mom!” “Mom?” The imagined voice echoed inside her head.

Lori took another unsteady step before the world in front of her doubled and blurred.

Her knees finally gave out, and she collapsed before reaching the edge of camp.

Carol cried out and caught her as best she could, lowering her carefully to the ground.

Farther down the road, music filled the cab of the fire engine.

Magnus Vane drove with one hand on the wheel while Carl sat beside him, both of them moving slightly with the beat.

There were at least a few advantages to the end of the world; nobody was going to pull Magnus over for playing music too loud anymore.

The sound inside the cab was so loud that the engine and road almost disappeared beneath it.

Magnus raised his voice over the music.

“Carl!” The boy turned toward him.

“We’re almost there!” Carl’s face immediately brightened.

“You ready to see Rick and Lori?” “Yeah!” The answer came out almost as loudly as Magnus’s question.

Magnus laughed.

The last seven days had changed their relationship more than he expected.

Carl had stopped feeling like someone else’s kid temporarily placed under his supervision and had become a companion Magnus genuinely enjoyed having around.

At times, Magnus even caught himself feeling strangely protective of him in a way that made Shane’s attachment to Rick’s family a little easier to understand.

“Magnus!” Carl suddenly leaned toward the windshield.

“Isn’t that Dad?” Magnus narrowed his eyes and turned the music off.

A man in a light-colored shirt was running straight toward them through the wet field.

He slipped once, caught himself, then stumbled again without slowing down.

Even at a distance, Magnus recognized Rick immediately.

He eased off the accelerator.

The air brakes hissed.

The fire engine stopped along the road bordering the farm.

Magnus opened the driver’s door and climbed down, already smiling as Rick came closer.

“What happened to you?” he called.

“I told you I’d bring Carl back safe—” Rick ran straight past him.

Magnus’s arms were still half open when Rick reached the passenger side, yanked the door open, and lifted Carl down from the cab.

He pulled his son against his chest so tightly that Carl’s wooden armor pressed awkwardly between them, but Rick didn’t seem to notice.

He buried his face against Carl’s hair and held on as though letting go might make the boy disappear again.

“You’re back.” Rick inhaled shakily.

“You’re okay.” His voice nearly broke.

Carl remained quiet, allowing his father to hold him.

Rick had spent a week imagining every possible ending to this search, and now the weight of all those thoughts finally collapsed at once.

The son he had thought might be dead was standing in his arms, warm and breathing.

For several seconds, Rick looked like he had forgotten anyone else existed.

Magnus stood nearby and clicked his tongue.

Then another voice came from behind him.

“Well, look who finally decided to show up.” Merle arrived out of breath and slapped one hand against Magnus’s shoulder.

“Have a nice vacation out there?

Seven damn days and you couldn’t even swing by camp once?” Magnus knocked his hand away.

“Get off me.” He glanced toward Rick, immediately noticing how exhausted the man looked.

“What happened while I was gone?” Merle shrugged.

“Nothing too exciting.

Shane found out Hershel had a barn full of walkers, so that turned into a whole thing.” His grin widened.

“Then we opened it up and put all of ’em down.” At least on that point, Merle had agreed completely with Shane.

“A barn full of walkers?” Magnus repeated.

“Yep.” Merle continued as if he were describing the weather.

“After that we kept training.

Then around day four, Rick and Lori started losing their minds because you two weren’t back.

Mostly because of Carl, obviously.” Magnus looked toward Rick again.

Now everything made sense.

He hadn’t considered how badly disappearing for an entire week without sending word would affect Carl’s parents.

Magnus had known exactly where Carl was every minute of every day, but Rick and Lori had known nothing.

To them, Magnus had simply taken their son into the wilderness and vanished.

“That bad, huh?” Magnus quietly revised his understanding of just how central Carl was to Rick’s ability to keep going.

A walker staggered out of the darkness behind Rick.

Magnus’s expression changed instantly.

He dragged the Stone Sledgehammer forward, stepped around Rick, and swung.

Whoosh!

The heavy head crushed into the walker’s skull.

Its body dropped into the mud.

Merle grinned from behind them.

“Almost forgot to mention it.

More walkers have been wandering near the farm lately.” Magnus turned his head slowly.

“You couldn’t have mentioned that before Rick nearly got grabbed?” Merle only shrugged.

Magnus didn’t bother answering.

He rested the Stone Sledgehammer against one shoulder and walked over to Rick.

“All right, enough.” He patted Rick firmly on the shoulder.

“Carl survived a week with me just fine.

Don’t kill him now by squeezing the air out of him.” Rick immediately loosened his hold.

“Sorry.” His eyes were still red.

Carl smiled slightly.

Magnus opened one of the rear crew doors of the fire engine.

“Everybody in.

We’ll talk when we get back.” By the time the fire engine rolled into camp, almost everyone had come outside.

Glenn reacted first and hurried toward the truck before it had fully settled.

Andrea, Amy, Daryl, Shane, T-Dog, Carol, Hershel, Maggie, Beth, Otis, Patricia, Jimmy, Jim, and the others gathered nearby.

Lori was the only person missing.

Glenn pulled open the rear door.

Rick climbed down with Carl beside him.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then they noticed the Wooden Armor Set.

The bow.

The quiver.

The dirt, scratches, and completely different posture.

Smiles spread almost automatically through the group.

Carl Grimes had left the farm looking like a protected kid being taken away for lessons.

He had come back looking like someone who had actually survived something.

Magnus climbed down from the driver’s side with the Stone Sledgehammer in hand.

Before he could say anything, Hershel quietly approached him.

The older man looked far more tired than when Magnus had left, and something about his expression suggested the last seven days had taken more from him than simple sleep.

“I thought our agreement was going to end before we ever reached the prison,” Hershel said.

Magnus looked at him.

Hershel gave no explanation.

He simply turned and walked back toward the farmhouse, leaving Magnus staring after his unusually lonely figure.