By the time the last goat was herded onto the trailer and the final batch of essential supplies was loaded into the truck, the eastern sky was already beginning to pale with the first light of dawn.
Inside the vehicles, the livestock breathed uneasily, and the supplies were stacked in neat order.
Maggie watched it all and let out a long breath.
Calista walked up beside her, looking over the vehicles now ready to depart, and said softly, "You did well, Maggie. No matter what happens, we've done everything we could."
Maggie turned to her, her gaze firm. "I just don't want to wait until disaster is right in front of us to regret not being prepared."
The exhaustion from reinforcing the defenses through the night washed over almost everyone.
As dawn approached, Rick and Jimmy drove off to scout in the direction of the walker horde Calista had predicted.
The others dragged their heavy steps back to the main house or their temporary shelters, planning to grab what little rest they could while waiting for news from the scouting team after sunrise.
Patricia rubbed her sleepy eyes and, out of habit, headed toward the chicken coop to do the morning feeding.
But as she got closer, she froze. The coop was completely empty.
Not a single hen remained. The ones that would usually cluck and crowd around at the sound of footsteps were all gone.
Even the eggs had been cleared out.
"What's going on? Where are the chickens? And the eggs?" Patricia muttered, confused, glancing around instinctively.
The stillness of early morning made every small sound stand out.
She thought she heard low voices and the uneasy stomping of hooves coming from behind the barn.
With growing confusion and a faint sense of unease, Patricia walked toward the back of the barn.
As she rounded the corner of the massive structure, the sight before her made her eyes fly open. She sucked in a sharp breath and cried out, "Oh my God!"
In a relatively hidden clearing behind the barn stood the farm's livestock transport truck and two fenced trailers.
On them, cows shifted restlessly, horses snorted, pigs and sheep were packed tightly together, and the chickens had all been crammed into cages and stacked in one corner.
The nearby truck that was usually used to haul hay was also piled high with crates and sacks.
Maggie, Calista, Leah, Merle, Shane, and even Daryl, despite his injured arm, stood nearby, while Glenn lifted the last crate onto the truck.
"What… what are you doing?!" Patricia's voice rose sharply with shock, carrying far through the quiet morning.
Her cry immediately set off a chain reaction.
Otis, who had just reached the front of the house, and Hershel, who was about to go inside, both turned and hurried over.
"Patricia, what's wrong?" Otis asked gruffly. Then he saw the scene behind the barn, and his mouth fell open wide enough to fit an egg.
Hershel stumbled forward. The moment he saw what was happening, his face flushed red.
The livestock he cherished were being loaded onto vehicles. The farm's supplies were being packed up. And leading it all was his eldest daughter, Maggie, along with Calista and the others he had taken in.
"Maggie!" Hershel's voice trembled with anger and pain. "Have you lost your mind? What are you doing? Why are you loading all the livestock onto trucks? And these supplies?"
He waved his arms, pointing at the vehicles as if they were some kind of threat.
"You're really going to believe the nonsense from these outsiders? Are you trying to tear this home apart?"
Facing her father's fury, Maggie's face turned pale, but her eyes remained resolute. She stepped forward.
"Dad, Calista isn't lying. We have to be ready. If the walker horde really comes, this is the only way to save anything."
"Walker horde? Walker horde? There is no walker horde!" Hershel roared. A sleepless night and the shock of the moment had stripped away his usual calm. "Look around. It's quiet. We reinforced the defenses. Those fences are strong enough!"
"No, Dad, you don't understand. Calista and the others have seen it. It's not something we can stop," Maggie insisted, refusing to back down.
Glenn quickly stepped in, trying to ease the tension as he positioned himself between them.
"Hershel, Maggie's just worried. She just wants to be prepared, in case…"
"In case what? There is no 'in case'!" Hershel snapped, cutting him off. For the first time, the usually gentle old man fixed a sharp, accusing gaze on Calista. "It's you. You filled her head with this nonsense and pushed her into doing something this crazy."
Calista pressed her lips together. There was no change in her expression as she faced his accusation.
She did not look at him. Instead, her eyes swept across the edge of the farm, toward the woods slowly brightening in the morning light.
Then her gaze stopped on a point beyond the distant fence.
"Hershel," she said calmly, cutting through his anger as she raised a hand to point, "look over there. Outside the fence. That moving shadow."
Everyone followed her gaze.
Sure enough, just beyond the newly reinforced wooden fence, a figure staggered along, swaying as it moved.
Its motions were stiff, its head tilted at an unnatural angle. It was a walker.
Hershel's anger faltered for a moment. He narrowed his eyes as he looked, and then, unexpectedly, a trace of smugness appeared on his face.
"See that?" he said, turning to Calista and Maggie, his tone full of self-assured reproach.
"It's just one lone walker. It's stuck outside. Our defenses are working. There is no walker horde. You're scaring yourselves for nothing."
He pointed at the walker, unable to cross the fence, as if it were proof that he was right.
"One lone walker doesn't mean there aren't thousands behind it," Calista said, but her voice was drowned out by his rising agitation.
Just as Hershel was about to continue scolding, and Maggie bit her lip, on the verge of tears,
before he could finish speaking,
"Vrrr… vrrr…"
A harsh engine roar and the screech of tires tearing across the ground came rushing in from the distance.
The farm's old pickup truck came barreling over the grassy slope at full speed, swerving wildly as it raced toward the house.
It was Rick and Jimmy, back from their early scouting run.
The truck had not even fully stopped when the passenger door was flung open.
Jimmy tumbled out, his face deathly pale. He pointed back the way they had come, his throat producing broken, incoherent sounds, too terrified to form words.
Rick jumped out from the driver's seat, his face drained of color, his eyes filled with horror.
With everything he had, he shouted at the group that had just gathered because of Hershel and Maggie's argument.
"Run! Get in the vehicles, now! The walker horde is coming! They're everywhere. We can't stop them!"
...
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