Chapter 60 Get on Your Knees!

At the same time, the last light of evening settled over the prison. More than a dozen exhausted survivors stood outside the chain-link perimeter fence and stared through it in silence, each wearing a different expression as the enormous complex stretched out before them. Maggie Greene took two unconscious steps forward, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten as she looked across the open yard, guard towers, concrete buildings, and multiple layers of fencing. “So this is it… the prison.”

Hope appeared almost immediately on the faces around her, especially among the parents. Lori instinctively kept Carl close, while Carol tightened her grip on Sophia’s hand as though the fences themselves had already made her daughter safer. After weeks of tents, abandoned roads, exposed campsites, and constantly watching the tree line for walkers, they were finally looking at something actually designed to keep people contained behind layers of steel and concrete. For the first time since leaving Hershel’s farm, the future Magnus had described no longer sounded like a promise.

Rick Grimes stood several yards away with his hands resting on his knees, trying to catch his breath after the final stretch of the journey. Sweat had soaked through his light shirt and ran from his forehead despite the cooling evening air, but he refused to lower his eyes from the prison. The chain-link fences were tall and tightly woven, the grounds provided enormous amounts of open space, and the cell blocks were built from concrete and reinforced steel. Even if the outer yard was lost someday, the group would still have multiple buildings and secured cell doors to fall back behind.

“This could actually work,” Rick murmured.

The prison had surpassed what he had imagined when Magnus first proposed it at Hershel’s farm. It wasn’t simply another temporary camp with a few cars parked in a circle; it was a place they might be able to fortify, farm, store supplies, and defend for years if they were careful. Rick glanced toward Lori and Carl, then toward Shane, and for a brief moment all three seemed to share the same relief without needing to say anything. After everything they had survived, there was finally something in front of them worth fighting to keep.

“Magnus was right,” Hershel said as he slowly approached the fence. The older veterinarian’s posture was still bent from days on the road, but even he seemed to straighten as he studied the property. “Those fences give us distance. The buildings give us another line of defense after that.” His eyes moved toward Maggie and Beth, and whatever regret remained over leaving the farm seemed to weaken.

Hershel had spent most of his life believing the Greene farm would be where his daughters built their futures, but the world had changed too much for that dream to survive untouched. Here, Beth and Maggie would have thick concrete walls around them instead of open fields, while people like Rick, Shane, Magnus, Daryl, and the others could defend the perimeter. There was room for crops, room for livestock, and enough structures to eventually create something more permanent than a camp. For the first time since leaving home, Hershel felt certain that choosing his family over the land had been the right decision.

A quiet sob came from nearby.

Carol covered her mouth for a moment before tears finally escaped anyway, though the expression on her face was one of relief rather than grief. Sophia stood beside her holding her doll, staring at the prison with the same wide-eyed curiosity children once reserved for new homes or schools. Carol had spent so long thinking only about surviving the next night that the idea of giving Sophia a locked room, a bed, and walls between her and the dead felt almost impossible. Now it was sitting directly in front of them.

The same feeling moved through the rest of the group.

For some, family had always been the reason to keep going.

For others, survival itself had been enough.

But as they stood before the prison, the facility became something they could all believe in together.

For several seconds, nobody noticed the movement behind them.

T-Dog stood near the rear of the group when something cold suddenly touched the back of his head.

He froze.

Then slowly raised both hands.

“What the hell are you people doing here?”

The unfamiliar voice shattered the moment.

Rick spun around immediately, his hand moving toward the Colt Python at his hip, while Shane reacted almost at the exact same time. Neither man completed the draw. Several armed figures had appeared behind the group, and one rifle was already aimed directly at Lori.

“I wouldn’t,” the leader said.

Rick stopped.

Shane did too.

The man standing nearest them was tall and heavily built, close to six feet one, with a hard face marked by old reddish scars. More importantly, he wore a bloodstained correctional-officer uniform from the prison, though the way he held his weapon made it obvious that whatever authority the uniform once represented had disappeared with the old world. Several others stood behind him with firearms already trained on Rick’s people.

Rick slowly moved his hands away from his gun. “You worked here?”

The man said nothing.

Rick continued carefully. “My name’s Rick Grimes. I was a deputy with the King County Sheriff’s Department before everything fell apart.” He kept his tone calm, trying to prevent Shane or anyone else from making a sudden move. “We’re not here looking for trouble. We’ve got families, kids, older people. We came here because we need shelter.”

Rick nodded toward the prison.

“We can put the guns down and talk this through.”

Bang!

A round struck the dirt beside Rick’s boot.

Everyone flinched.

The officer lowered the smoking barrel slightly. “Maybe you didn’t understand me.”

He stepped forward.

“Get on your knees.”

His weapon shifted toward Lori.

Rick’s expression hardened.

Then the man reached out and violently pulled Carl away from his mother.

“Carl!” Lori cried.

Shane immediately tensed.

“Easy!” Rick shouted. “Easy!”

The officer gripped Carl by one arm while keeping his gun close enough to Lori that nobody could gamble on a shot. Rick slowly raised both hands, placed them behind his head, and lowered himself onto his knees. Shane remained standing for another second, fury visible across his face, until Rick caught his eyes and gave the smallest possible shake of his head.

Not now.

They had made one serious mistake.

After days of constant travel, mechanical trouble, missing friends, and finally reaching the prison, everyone had relaxed too soon. Rick had expected walkers inside the compound, but he hadn’t seriously considered the possibility that armed survivors might already be operating around it. Now the entire group was exposed outside the fence with Lori and Carl being used to control him.

“There you go,” the man said.

Then he stepped forward and slammed the grip of his handgun across Rick’s face.

Rick crashed sideways onto the ground.

“Rick!” Lori shouted.

Blood immediately ran from his nose as the officer grabbed him and dragged him roughly toward the roadside. Rick fought through the dizziness, trying to focus as the barrel of the handgun pressed against his forehead. Around him, Shane, Glenn, Andrea, T-Dog, and the others remained trapped beneath multiple guns.

“Now,” the officer said, “tell me why you came here.”

Rick blinked several times until the world stopped spinning. “For the prison.”

The man stared at him.

“We didn’t come for you,” Rick continued. “We’ve got kids. Older people. Families who’ve spent weeks sleeping in tents and vehicles. We need concrete walls and a roof we can defend.”

The officer laughed.

Then looked toward his companions.

“You hear that?” he called. “Deputy here thinks his people are gonna take the prison.”

Several of the armed men laughed with him.

The leader’s amusement disappeared just as quickly.

“You have any idea what’s inside those fences?” he asked. “Hundreds of dead, maybe more. Cell blocks, yards, hallways—they’re everywhere.” He pointed toward the prison. “You think you’re just gonna walk in there and clear the whole damn place?”

Rick stared back at him.

The man continued. “You start shooting, you’ll bring every one of them down on you. You’ll burn through ammunition before you even reach the buildings.”

Something in Rick’s expression changed.

The man’s words told him more than the threats had.

These survivors knew the prison.

They knew the walkers inside.

And despite having weapons and firsthand knowledge of the facility, they had never taken it back.

“You don’t have to shoot them,” Rick said.

The officer frowned.

“Guns are for emergencies. You clear the outside with blades, axes, crowbars—anything quiet.” Rick slowly pushed himself a little higher despite the weapon against his forehead. “You control the noise, clear one section at a time, close doors behind you, and keep moving.”

The man’s eyes narrowed.

Rick finally understood what he was looking at.

This wasn’t confidence.

It was fear wearing a uniform.

The prison guards had escaped the facility and convinced themselves that returning was impossible. Maybe they had watched coworkers die, maybe they had abandoned inmates and other staff during the collapse, or maybe the sheer number of walkers had simply broken them. Whatever had happened, they had been sitting outside one of the most defensible places Rick had seen since the outbreak because they were too afraid to take it back.

Rick slowly raised his eyes toward the man.

And for the first time since the gun touched his forehead, there was no fear in his expression.

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