Chapter 62 Take the Prison Yard!

“You…” Dale started to speak, but the words died in his throat the moment Magnus Vane looked at him. Magnus was still streaked with blood from the fight, his expression calm enough to be more unsettling than anger as he walked over. “What were you going to say, Dale?” he asked evenly. “That we’re going back to voting on every life-or-death decision now? Did something change while I was gone for two days?”

There was no shouting in Magnus’s voice, but the edge beneath it was unmistakable. Dale had always believed that holding on to some part of the old world mattered, and Magnus understood that better than most people probably thought; he simply refused to let those principles become a weapon that paralyzed the group whenever immediate danger demanded action. Dale hesitated under his gaze before finally shaking his head. “No. Nothing changed.”

“Good.”

The pressure around Magnus disappeared almost instantly. He gave Dale a brief pat on the shoulder and walked past him as though the matter had been settled, because as far as Magnus was concerned, it had. He was willing to hear advice, arguments, and criticism, but that did not mean every decision would become a debate when lives were already on the line. If the group wanted him taking responsibility for survival, then there would be moments when he expected them to follow his call first and argue afterward.

That lesson mattered now more than ever.

The former correctional officers had pointed guns at Lori, Carl, and the rest of the group, forced Rick onto his knees, and threatened to kill people if Rick refused to walk alone into a walker-filled yard. Magnus wanted everyone to remember what that meant. Out here, danger didn’t become less dangerous because the person holding the gun was older, younger, male, female, scared, desperate, or wearing a uniform. Anyone willing to threaten their people had to be treated as a threat.

Carol stopped Magnus as he passed.

He turned toward her.

Without saying anything at first, she pulled out a clean handkerchief and gently wiped some of the blood from his face. Since Ed’s death, the softness Carol usually reserved for Sophia occasionally appeared when she looked at Magnus, though she rarely expressed it directly. “I knew you’d bring Daryl and Merle back.”

Magnus’s expression softened slightly. “Thanks.”

He continued toward Rick, with Daryl and Merle naturally falling into step on either side of him. Carol followed after a brief hesitation, then Andrea, Glenn, Hershel, and several others moved with them until almost the entire group had gathered in one place. After what had just happened, the value of clear leadership no longer felt theoretical. Whatever disagreements they might have later, nobody wanted to experience another moment like being forced to their knees while strangers decided whether their families lived.

Magnus stopped in front of Rick.

Rick had already wiped most of the blood from beneath his nose and returned the machete to its sheath. He was still breathing hard, but the instant he looked at Magnus, some of the tension in his shoulders disappeared. “Good timing,” Rick said. “Really damn good timing.”

Magnus smiled faintly. “You looked like you had it handled.”

Rick gave him a look that made it clear neither of them believed that completely. The truth was that when Magnus, Daryl, and Merle had stepped out of the tree line, Rick had felt an enormous weight lift from his chest. He had been ready to do whatever he could, but with Lori and Carl under guns, every option had looked terrible. Whatever Dale thought about Magnus’s methods, Rick could look at his wife and son standing alive nearby and decide that was enough for him.

Shane stood a few feet away with both hands resting on his hips. His eyes followed Magnus differently than before, with less suspicion and more recognition. What Magnus had done to the surviving guard was exactly what Shane had wanted to do himself. To Shane, enemies were enemies and family was family, and the line between them needed to remain painfully clear in a world where hesitation could get somebody killed.

Magnus glanced down at the bodies of the former officers. “Where the hell did these guys even come from?”

Rick shook his head. “We’d only been here a little while. They came out of the woods on the far side before we realized anyone was around.” He looked toward the abandoned weapons scattered near the bodies. “Every one of them was armed, and we were standing here staring at the prison like idiots. They caught us completely off guard.”

Magnus listened, then slowly understood.

In the original timeline he remembered, Rick’s group had reached the prison much later. These men either would have been dead by then, driven away, or absorbed into some other survivor group long before Rick ever arrived. But Magnus’s presence had changed the timeline dramatically; they had reached the prison months earlier than they should have, which meant they had crossed paths with survivors who normally would never have existed by this point in the story.

“Figures,” Magnus muttered.

His gaze moved toward the prison.

“These guys had the keys to one of the best fortified places in Georgia and still hid outside because they were too scared to take back even the yard.” He shook his head. “What a waste.”

Magnus called everyone closer.

“The prison is here,” he said, raising his voice enough for the group to hear clearly. “I told you I’d get us here, and I told you I’d bring Daryl and Merle back. We’re all standing together now, which means the next step is getting inside.”

People looked toward the fences.

Magnus continued. “Once we start clearing this place, I need everyone following instructions when they’re given. We can argue about plans before or after an operation, but while we’re in the middle of one, people doing different things because they disagree is how somebody dies.” His eyes moved across Rick, Shane, Andrea, Glenn, Hershel, and the others. “If something sounds wrong, say it. But once we move, we move together.”

Nobody objected.

Magnus nodded.

Then he took the prison key from Rick.

“We start with the yard.”

He pointed toward the open exercise area beyond the first gate. There were no buildings immediately blocking their view, which made it the safest section to secure before dark. Once the walkers inside were cleared, they could shut the next barrier and spend the night behind the perimeter fence instead of camping outside where another survivor group could approach unnoticed.

“Glenn.”

Glenn stepped forward.

Magnus removed a heavy chain from the gate and handed it to him. “You’re the fastest person here. Once I open this, don’t waste time fighting unless you absolutely have to. Run straight across the yard, reach the gate on the other side, pull it shut, and lock it with this chain before anything deeper inside can spill out.”

Maggie’s expression immediately tightened.

Her hand found Glenn’s.

Glenn squeezed it once and gave her a reassuring smile before taking the chain from Magnus. “Got it.”

Magnus looked toward everyone else. “Same rule as before. Anyone who isn’t fighting stays inside the fenced passage between the outer barriers, and the people assigned to protect them stay there.” He turned toward the walkers scattered across the yard, and a slight smile appeared. “The ones inside are mine.”

Several people looked as though they wanted to argue.

Magnus opened the gate before they could.

Creeeeak!

The rusty metal groaned loudly across the prison grounds.

Walkers immediately turned toward the sound.

Several began stumbling toward the opening, arms reaching through the air as Magnus stepped inside carrying the Quality 5 Stone Sledgehammer. Compared with the Blood Moon Berserkers, these walkers looked almost slow enough to be standing still. Magnus planted his feet, drew the hammer back, and swung.

WHAM!

The first strike knocked multiple walkers down together.

With Strength Lv10, an ordinary walker could barely resist the force behind the weapon. One clean hit broke skulls or sent bodies crashing into one another, while anything that fell only required a quick finishing blow before Magnus moved to the next target. The walkers inside the prison yard had also been trapped for months, many weak and decayed from exposure, making them far less aggressive than the fresh dead wandering outside.

Rick quickly understood Magnus’s rhythm.

Instead of crowding into the yard and getting in his way, Rick led several people along the outside fence and began striking the chain-link with weapons, shouting and drawing walkers away from Glenn’s route. Shane, T-Dog, Andrea, and others spread themselves along different sections, pulling attention toward the perimeter while Glenn waited for an opening. The walkers turned toward the noise, leaving a clear lane through the center.

“Now!” Magnus shouted.

Glenn ran.

He moved across the yard with the same speed and quick reactions that had once made him one of the best supply runners in Atlanta. A walker reached for him, and Glenn slipped past without slowing; another wandered into his path, forcing him to change direction by only a few feet before continuing. He didn’t stop to fight, exactly as Magnus had ordered.

The inner gate came into view.

Glenn reached it first.

He grabbed the sliding barrier, dragged it shut with both hands, then wrapped the chain through the metal frame and locked it tightly before the walkers deeper inside the compound could reach the opening. Only after checking the chain did he finally turn around. “Done!”

He expected to see walkers chasing him.

Instead, Magnus was already walking across the yard.

Walker blood covered the Stone Sledgehammer resting on his shoulder, and bodies lay scattered behind him across the open ground. Magnus looked toward Glenn and smiled as the last ordinary walker nearby collapsed with a heavy thud. “Perfect.”

He glanced around the yard.

“I’m done too.”

By the time darkness approached, the first yard belonged to them.

Magnus and Rick divided the remaining security check between them, moving around the perimeter and inspecting each of the four guard towers. They checked every stairwell, platform, blind corner, and section of fence for hidden walkers or survivors who might have been waiting to ambush them. Only after all four towers were cleared and both men had inspected the corners of the yard did Magnus finally allow himself to relax.

The group established a temporary camp inside the secured exercise yard.

They had not cleared the cell blocks yet.

Walkers still wandered on the other side of the chained inner gate.

But for the first time in days, they were sleeping behind prison fencing.

Carol handed Magnus a bowl of mushroom soup.

He looked down at it.

Then at her.

“When we find the cafeteria tomorrow, I’m never eating this again.”

His expression remained so serious that Carol stared at him for a second before laughing. Glenn joined in almost immediately, followed by Maggie, Amy, T-Dog, and several others until the tension that had followed them since reaching the prison finally began to break. Even Rick lowered his head with a tired smile.

The moment felt strangely normal.

People sat together eating.

Children remained near their families.

The pigs they had rescued from the farm stop were still alive.

Vehicles and supplies were nearby.

And beyond the fence stood concrete buildings that might soon become their home.

Somebody quietly looked around the yard.

“So… this is ours now?”

Nobody answered immediately.

They had spent days imagining this moment after Magnus first described the prison around Hershel’s bonfire. Back then it had been nothing more than an idea: fences they had never seen, buildings they weren’t sure existed, and a future that depended on surviving hundreds of miles of road. Now their feet were actually resting on prison ground.

They hadn’t taken the entire complex.

Not yet.

But the yard beneath them was secure.

That was enough for tonight.

Several people unconsciously looked toward Magnus.

He sat with his back against a fence post, quietly drinking mushroom soup as though he hadn’t been covered in blood and crushing walkers only a short time earlier. The contrast was almost absurd. During the fight he had seemed like something the apocalypse itself had created; now he merely looked like a tired man complaining about dinner.

Tomorrow, they would begin clearing the prison for real.