"Ugghh, they smell so bad."
Tom struck down a walker and complained after while covering his nose with his wrist.
"We're..gonna have a lot of work to do after this." Standing beside him, Nolan also complained as he killed his tenth walker.
It has been twenty minutes since the herd had reached them and surprisingly, the abatis wall is actually holding up despite their numbers. Another factor is that the walkers that were taken down are piling up at the front, making those late to the party not properly being able to do anything except moan in "frustration" as they try to push through the crowd of their fellow undead.
It was fortunate that the survivors made the abatis out of sturdy logs or they would have managed to push through them with how the walkers are swarming towards them like a tide.
Despite killing an unimaginable number of them, there are still more arriving at the scene. They stepped over their dead compatriots as they madly tried to crawl their way over towards the survivors. Though their deaths just added more thickness on the wall that is made of the dead.
"What now? Do we continue killing them?" Resting beside Rick while watching the second group going against the walkers, Hershel turned towards him.
"Switch out to long spears." Rick commanded one of the survivors, who quickly relayed his words to the front.
"We can't leave them be, they'll just attract more walkers to our area if we don't kill them all. Besides, who can withstand that disgusting smell in the air if we don't clean them up after this?" Rick said while also complaining since he knows that cleaning up after is even more tiring than killing them.
"I hate this. I hate what the world has become." Otis said while sitting down on the grass and watching the other group deal with their adversary.
"You just need to learn how to accept it or it's going to eventually eat you." A robust, rough and tall black man responded to his words. He was leaning on the fence and was quietly watching the others when he happened to overhear their conversation and couldn't help but join in.
Rick twisted his body to look behind him and found the man somewhat familiar. Then he noticed Daryl chatting with Mady near the watchtower and finally remembered who the man was.
"You're Tyresse, right?" Rick fully turned around to face him with an intrigue smile on his face.
Tyreese slowly stood properly and looked at him calmly. "Yeah, I've been-"
"I know, you're that guy that Daryl has been telling me about. I heard you're with your daughter and sister when you got here. What did you do before this?" Rick's curiosity was finally piqued, not only because Daryl had been vouching for that guy, but because of his robust and tall physique similar to Big Tiny.
"There were actually four of us before, but my daughter's boyfriend died on the way here. I played in the NFL in my teens, then a short stint as bouncer after a game injury before finally taking a job as a car's salesman." Tyreese calmly replied, but with an obvious reminiscentness in his voice.
Rick and Hershel gave each other a knowing look before the former calmly threw another question. "Have you killed someone before?"
"Yeah, my daughter's boyfriend after he tried to force my daughter to take her own life." The man did not even hesitate, nor the least bit ashamed of what he did. He looked directly into Rick's eyes to show that he wasn't ashamed of it. In fact, there's even a slight hatred in his eyes when he suddenly remembered that guy.
Rick did not back down, he locked eyes with him before his lips slowly turned into a grin. He chuckled and said. "I respect that. I'd probably do the same if I was in your eyes, maybe even worse than just simply killing him."
'I'd probably feed them to the walkers if someone did something like that to Carl.' When those thoughts crossed his mind, Rick was a little startled at the realization that he was having such maddened thoughts.
An hour later.
"That's the last of them."
Their taut nerves finally relaxed after the last walker was killed. A surge of exhaustion quickly assaulted their senses as a lot of the survivors fell down on the ground on their butts, their legs and arms shaking from the constant repeated movements of using the spear.
"I suddenly can't feel my arms." one of the survivors said with a chuckle while looking at his nearby companion.
His friend was also in the same state, "We never fought walkers head on like this before, we just kill a few then make a run for it. This experience was so tiring, I think we even took down more than the estimated number, right?"
"Heck yeah we did. Just look at the pile, the herd would have overwhelmed the barricade if we didn't switch to firearms halfway through."
After the skirmish between the living and the dead, bullet casings and broken spears littered across the ground.
While across the abatis wall was a huge pile of rotting dead bodies that blocked the only way in and out of the prison, and the rotten stench forced everyone to cover half their faces with a piece of cloth.
"Alright, great job everyone! Take a fifteen minute rest before we start cleaning up the scene. We don't want anyone getting sick after all." Rick ordered everyone after a short discussion with Daryl, Hershel and Glenn.
"I want group one to dig a hole for the bodies to be buried in. If I remember, just a short walk northeast from here, I think there's a sizable open land for us to dump these bodies. Group two will carry the bodies to the site while the rest prepare a hot bath for us. We don't want anyone contaminated entering the inner premises. Glenn, get Maggie and the rest of those inside to build a makeshift bath out in the front yard. Have them use curtains to avoid the hassle."
"Got it." Glenn answered and immediately contacted Maggie through the radio.
Soon after, everyone resumed work after a short rest. They cleared a section of the dead mound for the people in group one to pass through as they headed to look for a place to start digging.
"Man, this is a lot of bodies to transport." Walking past the barricade and seeing the situation on the other side of the wall, Axel let out a complaint when he saw the pile of dead bodies that stretched out all the way back.
It was a scene of horror, and everyone slowly realized how disturbing the image before them was.
"This is even worse than those horror movies."
"Keurgg, oh gosh. This shit will haunt me in my sleep." A survivor ran to the side and started vomiting. It's obvious that the adrenaline pumping on their bodies had now fully worn off and realization has once again hit them in the face.
"If I didn't know any better, it's like we just participated in a genocide." With his hands crossed, Daryl also couldn't help but say something when he saw the states of the other survivors around them.
Rick picked up his radio and called out to someone. "Maggie, you there?"
[I'm here.] The familiar voice of Maggie came through the radio with a static.
"Make sure the kids don't go out before we take care of the mess here. I don't want any of them to see this, it will destroy their minds." Rick ordered in a solemn tone.
[Got it]
Rick looked at the people working for a moment, before he started to slowly walk towards them while thinking inside.
'This is gonna take a while.'