Jim's heart kicked into overdrive the second he heard the warning.
He spun around, and found himself staring directly into the rotted face of a walker. It was close, so close that he could see the maggots writhing in what used to be its cheek.
His hands moved on instinct, trying to bring the rifle up, but he was off-balance and the magazine wasn't seated and the walker was already lunging...
Thwack.
A crossbow bolt tore through the walker's forehead. The thing's head snapped back, momentum arrested mid-lunge, and it collapsed.
He stood there, staring at the corpse. He'd come within two seconds of dying. Maybe less.
He turned, searching for his savior.
Daryl was already reloading. He did not look at Jim or acknowledge the save. He simply swung the crossbow around and fired at another target across the camp.
Jim wanted to say something, but Daryl was already gone, moving to the next threat, and he realized he needed to do the same.
He slammed the magazine home and got back in the fight.
---
On the RV roof, Lucien's heart was still hammering from watching Jim's near-death.
He'd been a split second away from using the Levitation Charm to yank the walker backward. His wand was already halfway out from under his coat sleeve when Daryl's bolt had saved him the trouble.
Too close... way too bloody close.
He forced himself to breathe and scanned the camp again, letting his awareness spread outward.
"Behind the RV! Near the trees! Two of them!"
The angle was bad. The firelight didn't reach that far, and the RV's bulk created a blind spot that no one on the ground could see. Two walkers were shambling out of the woods.
Dale and Glenn spun around, searching for targets. Before they could lock on, a gunshot cracked through the night.
Bang.
The lead walker's head exploded. Brain matter and dark blood sprayed across the grass, and the corpse dropped.
Lucien turned to see Andrea standing at the edge of the RV roof, both hands gripped around a silver pistol. Her blonde ponytail whipped in the night breeze, and her face was twisted with fury.
She'd shoved Amy inside the RV and come up here armed.
"Stay away from us!"
She fired again at the second walker.
The shot went wide and missed by at least a foot. The walker let out a raspy moan and lurched forward, picking up speed. Andrea was fumbling with the gun, trying to line up another shot, when Jacqui moved.
She grabbed a metal mop handle that someone had duct-taped a kitchen knife to and hurled it like a javelin.
The makeshift spear caught the walker clean through the eye socket. The blade went through, the shaft following, pinning the thing's head to the ground behind it. The walker twitched once and went still.
"That was too close," Glenn breathed, lowering the bat he'd been about to swing.
He looked at Jacqui and gave her a shaky thumbs up. "Nice throw."
Jacqui just nodded, already scanning for the next threat.
Dale had been standing guard with his hunting rifle the whole time. Now he lowered the weapon and walked over to Lucien, placing one hand on the kid's shoulder.
"We've got this covered. Get inside the RV where it's safe."
Lucien opened his mouth to argue, but Jacqui cut him off.
"Glenn told me what you did in the city. If you've got ideas, we're listening."
Andrea wiped dust and sweat from her face. "My aim's shit right now. I know that. But there's got to be something I can do to help."
Glenn was more direct. He gave Lucien a half-serious salute. "Just tell us what you need."
Dale looked at the three of them, and something in his expression softened. He didn't argue. Instead, he squeezed Lucien's shoulder once.
"Whatever you're planning, just promise me you'll be careful. Safety comes first."
Lucien stared at them, caught off-guard. He'd been prepared to argue. Instead, they'd just trusted him.
He swallowed and nodded. "Then here's what we do."
---
The battle kicked into high gear.
Walkers kept coming, more than anyone had anticipated, pouring out of the tree line in ones and twos and sometimes groups of four or five. The camp's defenders were holding, but barely.
On the RV roof, Lucien became the eye in the storm.
"Rick! Ten o'clock, three of them clustering behind the pickup! They're trying to flank you!"
Rick adjusted his aim without hesitation, trusting the warning. Three shots, three dead walkers.
"Glenn! Andrea! Movement in the woods to your left, more than one!"
Andrea swung around, and dropped the first walker that emerged from the trees. Glenn took the second with his bat.
But warnings alone weren't enough. The battle was too chaotic.
In the shadows beyond the firelight, a walker lunged at Morgan, who was reloading. It should've gotten him, but its foot caught on something. Maybe a root or a rock. It went down, and he spun around and put a bullet through its skull before it could recover.
He didn't question it. He just counted himself lucky and kept fighting.
T-Dog was grappling with a walker when his hand brushed against something metal on the ground. It was a crowbar, lying right where he needed it. He grabbed it without thinking and drove the curved end into the walker's temple, then shoved the corpse away.
He did not stop to wonder how the crowbar had gotten there. There was no time for that. Another walker was already coming at him.
Jim's rifle jammed. He was working the action, trying to clear it, when a walker got within grabbing distance. The thing's hands were reaching for him when it suddenly jerked sideways, like it had stepped in a hole. He finished clearing the jam and shot it while it was down.
Pure luck, he thought. Thank God for small favors.
Lucien was tucked into the shadows at the edge of the RV roof, his wand hidden beneath his coat. Each spell was quick and subtle. A trip at the right moment, a slight nudge, an object shifted into someone's path when they needed it most. He was burning through his reserves fast, but people were still alive because of it.
Nobody noticed. They were all too busy fighting.
The minutes blurred together. Time stopped having any real meaning. There was only the next threat, the next shot, and the next desperate scramble to stay alive.
The sky began to change. The absolute black of night gave way to something lighter. It was not dawn yet, but it carried the promise of it, that deep blue-grey that came before the sun.
The walkers kept coming, but more slowly now. There were fewer of them. The horde was thinning.
Daryl put a bolt through the last one Lucien could sense. It dropped, and for the first time in what felt like hours, there was silence.
There was only breathing. Ragged, exhausted, desperate breathing. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air like a fog.
---
The survivors gathered around the fire.
Nobody spoke at first. They just stood there, weapons hanging loose in their hands, staring at the carnage scattered across the camp. Walker corpses littered the ground, dark blood soaking into the grass. Shell casings glinted in the firelight.
Shane was the first to move, checking himself for injuries out of habit. Rick did the same, then immediately started checking everyone else.
"Sound off," Rick's voice was hoarse. "Anyone hurt?"
Morales had a gash across his forearm. Miranda was holding a blood-soaked cloth to her husband's head. It looked worse than it was, with plenty of blood but nothing serious. Jim already had bruises forming across his ribs. Carol was shaken but unhurt. Andrea had scraped her knuckles raw from gripping the gun too tightly.
They went through everyone one by one. There were cuts, bruises, and too many close calls. As they checked each other over, Rick took his time. He examined every injury and asked about every near miss. Slowly, a pattern began to emerge.
There were no bites, not a single one.
"Wait." T-Dog looked around the circle. "Nobody got bit?"
"I got grabbed," Jim said slowly. "Thing had me by the arm. But Daryl..." He looked at the younger Dixon brother. "You shot it before it could..."
"I tripped," Morgan added. "Thought I was done for. But the walker went down before I did."
"Same here," someone else said. "I ran out of ammo, was about to get swarmed, and then I just... found a weapon."
One by one, they started sharing their stories.
Andrea looked up at the RV roof, where Lucien was sitting with Dale, Glenn, and Jacqui.
"We should've lost people tonight," she said quietly. "That many walkers... we should've lost half the camp."
Rick followed her gaze. He'd been a cop long enough to recognize patterns, to spot when the odds had been stacked too far in someone's favor to be pure chance. But right now, he decided some questions could wait.
"We got lucky," he said finally.
Shane looked at him, clearly thinking the same thing Rick was, but he just nodded. "Yeah. Real lucky."
The camp fell into silence.
Everyone had survived. Against all odds, through impossible circumstances, not a single person had been bitten.