Jimmy swallowed hard, his palms slick with sweat.
Otis had some experience, but he was too heavy and lacked stamina. Jimmy, though younger, suffered from anemia and wasn't particularly strong either.
If the two of them tried to quietly take down five or six walkers at once with melee weapons, the risk would be enormous. If they got pinned down or made too much noise, the consequences would be disastrous.
"Go wake up Rick and the others. I'll keep watch here." Jimmy took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm.
He knew his limits. A direct fight wasn't an option.
Otis nodded and hurried toward the convenience store.
Jimmy tightened his grip on the machete, holding his breath as he stared at the walkers drawing closer.
Their rotting faces flickered in and out of view under the dim light. He gauged the distance, his heartbeat thundering in his ears.
The convenience store door opened softly. Just as Otis was about to speak, a voice beat him to it.
"We heard you."
Calista was already awake, along with Leah, Shane, and Rick.
Whether from professional habit or sheer instinct, they remained on high alert at almost all times.
The others were still fast asleep.
They each grabbed their weapons.
Calista quickly assessed the situation. "Not many of them. We'll handle this with melee weapons. Rick, take the two on the left. Shane, the two on the right. I'll take the middle two. Otis, Jimmy, hold the sides of the vehicles and keep anything from getting near the livestock. Leah, guard the entrance and make sure the store stays secure."
As soon as she finished speaking, Calista moved first.
She didn't even reach for her machete. Instead, she drew the military dagger strapped to her thigh, lowering her body as she advanced with steps so light they were almost silent.
The moment she closed in on the walkers in the middle, she suddenly accelerated. A cold flash cut through the darkness as the dagger drove cleanly into a walker's eye socket.
The two walkers didn't even manage a proper snarl before collapsing to the ground.
At nearly the same moment, Shane and Rick rushed the four on either side.
Shane's fire axe tore through the air. One powerful horizontal swing nearly split a walker's head in half. He followed through immediately, smashing another skull.
Rick charged forward with a crowbar, driving it straight into a walker's eye socket.
Another walker tried to come at Rick from the side. Before Rick could pull his crowbar free, Shane reacted instantly, swinging his axe into its temple and dropping it on the spot.
The two exchanged a glance. Rick gave a quiet, complicated thanks to his former partner.
Shane responded with a low "Mm."
Things between them would never go back to how they were.
The fight ended in moments. All six walkers lay motionless on the ground.
Jimmy and Otis stood there, stunned.
It was the first time they had witnessed such efficiency in combat up close. It was far beyond anything they, who had spent the apocalypse living relatively peacefully on the farm, could match.
Calista stepped forward, checked the bodies, and said quietly, "Clean this up. Move the bodies farther away."
She, Leah, Shane, and Rick began working without a word, each dragging a corpse and tossing it into the roadside grass.
Otis and Jimmy quickly joined in, each hauling a body.
As Rick worked, his thoughts churned.
Once again, he was reminded of the huge gap between Calista and Leah, and people like them who were simply struggling to survive in this world, when it came to combat skill and experience.
"It's clear here. Go back and rest. When it's time, wake up Shane and Merle," Calista said calmly to Jimmy and Otis once they were done.
The second watch would be Shane and Merle. The latter half of the night would be Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog.
Jimmy finally let out a breath of relief, only then realizing his back was soaked with cold sweat.
He watched Calista and Leah as they walked away, a complicated mix of emotions rising in his chest.
Fear, admiration, and a faint desire to become as strong as they were.
...
Two days.
In the apocalypse, two days could feel like an endless torment, long enough to drain away all hope. Or it could be a short stretch of gritted teeth and stubborn persistence, pushing through despair until the destination finally came into view.
For this mixed convoy of the Rock Fortress Squad, Rick's group, and the Farm, those two days captured every hardship and fragility of traveling in the apocalypse.
They avoided the main roads where large herds might gather, choosing instead to wind their way along rural backroads.
The road conditions varied constantly. At times, they had to get out and clear intersections blocked by abandoned vehicles.
Hershel remained silent most of the time, staring blankly out at the ruined landscape.
He had lost the home he had spent his entire life building, and the blow had not yet faded.
Maggie and Beth did their best to care for him, while also tending to the livestock in the vehicles, making sure these fragile hopes for the future survived the journey.
Rick handled the coordination of both his group and the farm survivors.
After losing Shane, his leadership stood out even more clearly. But the constant responsibility weighed heavily on him, leaving a deepening fatigue etched across his face.
Because of the butterfly effect of Calista killing Randall, they hadn't gone through as many conflicts and setbacks as in the original storyline.
Shane never turned dark. Rick never had to kill his own best friend. And so, he never spoke that iconic line about there being no more democracy in the group.
Rick still carried the entire group on his shoulders, a good leader worn down by the burden.
Truly the most exhausted male lead in American TV history.
Calista had become the core decision-maker of the convoy, controlling its overall direction and security.
Her decisions were sharp, her orders clear. That efficiency, combined with the absolute discipline Leah and the others showed in following her commands, made Rick quietly envious.
Shane seemed to have fully integrated into Calista's team.
He took the initiative to handle forward scouting. His professional skills and sharp instincts quickly earned recognition from both Calista and Leah.
He barely spoke to Rick or Lori anymore. When their eyes occasionally met, he would look away almost immediately. That door to the past had clearly been shut in his heart.
Andrea and Dale, on the other hand, had grown closer. Their shared escape had smoothed over past tensions and brought them nearer than before.
The rest of the group was also doing their best to adapt.
Just as everyone's nerves were stretched to their limit, on the afternoon of the third day, Calista, riding at the front, slowed her motorcycle and raised a hand, signaling the convoy to stop.
They were on a gentle slope.
Calista said nothing. She simply lifted her hand and pointed into the distance.
Everyone followed her gesture, unconsciously holding their breath.
At the far edge of the horizon, the outline of a gray cluster of buildings gradually came into view.
A continuous stretch of tall concrete walls, several meters high, with faint traces of barbed wire surrounding them.
Inside the walls, the rooftops of several square buildings could be seen.
The prison.
That was the destination Calista had marked on the map, the goal they had been pushing toward for the past two days.
[Story timeline: The farm fell in the fall at the end of Season 2, likely around December. Rick's group then struggled through the wilderness for an entire winter, several months, before discovering and clearing the prison in the spring at the start of Season 3. This shows they did not simply move there from nearby, but went through a long and difficult journey.
The filming location for Greene Farm was in Senoia, Georgia.
The prison was filmed in Griffin, Georgia.
The road distance between the two is approximately 130 kilometers.]