Chapter 63 Magnus Gets Drunk and Starts Bragging

After dinner, the group pitched several tents inside the newly secured prison yard and turned the open ground into a rough temporary camp. Everyone should have been exhausted after days on the road and the confrontation with the former correctional officers, yet almost nobody seemed ready to sleep. They had finally reached the place Magnus had been talking about since Hershel’s farm, and the excitement of sleeping behind a prison fence for the first time kept people gathered together long after the meal was finished. Carl, Sophia, and several of the younger members eventually crowded around Magnus and started demanding to know what had happened during the two days he was separated from everyone.

Magnus glanced around and noticed that the adults were listening too, even if they pretended otherwise. That was all the encouragement he needed, especially after a couple of beers had already warmed his face. “All right, but I’m warning you, what happened that night was unbelievable,” he began solemnly. “The kind of story that makes grown men cry, kids forget they were scared, and old folks start wondering whether they wasted their lives by not being there to see it.” He pointed toward the rescued pigs. “Hell, if those two could understand English, they’d probably be hiding their ears right now.”

The children immediately leaned closer, while Hershel and several of the older survivors struggled not to laugh. Magnus claimed he probably shouldn’t tell the full story with children present, but his increasingly animated expression made it obvious he had absolutely no intention of stopping. Carol sat nearby working with a few small belongings she had carried from the farm, occasionally looking toward Magnus with an amused smile. The firelight reflected across his flushed face as he prepared to turn one of the worst nights of his life into the most ridiculous story anybody in the prison had heard yet.

“You should’ve seen it,” Magnus continued, sweeping one hand dramatically through the air. “There I was inside this old church when at least a hundred walkers came charging straight at me. And these weren’t the usual slow idiots either—they could run.” Carl’s eyes widened because he knew Magnus rarely exaggerated when teaching him about danger, which only made the ridiculous story sound more convincing. Magnus slapped one hand against his chest. “But come on. Who were they dealing with? Me.”

Carl grinned.

Magnus pointed at himself again. “Magnus Vane. Professional bad-decision survivor.”

Several adults laughed.

“If the world had ended a few hundred years ago, somebody probably would’ve made me a knight by now,” Magnus declared. “Or at least given me a ridiculous statue somewhere.” He leaned toward the children and lowered his voice. “Anyway, right before those hundred walkers came through the church doors, I found two dried fish lying beside me.”

Sophia blinked.

Carl frowned seriously.

Beth, who had moved closer to listen, looked suspiciously entertained already.

Magnus raised one finger. “Naturally, I checked the label.”

Carl couldn’t resist. “What did it say?”

Magnus looked from face to face, letting the silence stretch until everyone was waiting for the answer. Then he leaned forward and whispered dramatically, “Made in Florida.”

There was a pause.

“Florida?” Carl repeated.

“Exactly.” Magnus nodded with absolute conviction. “And everybody knows if something survived long enough to get shipped out of Florida during the apocalypse, it has to be dangerous.”

That finally broke several of the adults.

Glenn lowered his head, laughing.

Maggie covered her mouth.

Even Rick smiled from where he sat with Lori.

Magnus continued as though he were delivering sworn testimony. “So I grabbed one dried fish in each hand. Right then, thunder cracked over the church, lightning lit up the windows, rain was coming down sideways, and those red-eyed walkers poured through the doors like somebody had announced free food.” He lifted both hands as though holding imaginary weapons. “Naturally, I decided dried fish were close enough to nunchucks.”

Carl was openly laughing now.

Magnus swung his hands through the air. “Left side, right side, backhand, overhead. I hit those walkers so hard they started reconsidering the whole apocalypse.” He nodded gravely. “Couple rounds later, some of them decided running into the wall was a better option than fighting me.”

Beth burst out laughing.

Magnus pulled Carl against his side and lowered his voice again. “But do you know why the dried fish worked?”

Carl shook his head rapidly.

Beth leaned in closer too.

Magnus waited until he was certain everyone was listening before giving a satisfied nod. “Because they smelled so dead that the walkers thought I was family.”

Carl stared at him.

Then the entire group cracked up.

Beth laughed hard enough that she had to lean against Maggie. Carol covered her smile with one hand, while T-Dog and Glenn started adding their own comments from the other side of the fire. Nobody seriously believed Magnus had defeated a Blood Moon horde with dried fish, but the absurdity was exactly what made the story work after everything they had been through.

Only Daryl and Merle exchanged a different kind of look.

Merle leaned slightly toward his brother. “You remember how much dried blood was on him when he showed up at the gas station?”

Daryl glanced toward Magnus. “Yeah.”

“You think some of this actually happened?”

Daryl frowned. “The fish didn’t.”

“No kidding.”

“And walkers don’t just decide to run headfirst into walls.”

Merle smirked. “Maybe they do when Magnus starts telling stories.”

Daryl gave him a flat look.

Merle shrugged. “What? I’m just saying, brother. That much blood didn’t come from taking a nap.”

The laughter continued across the yard, creating an atmosphere almost completely different from the tense camp that had existed while Magnus, Daryl, and Merle were missing. Rick sat with one arm around Lori and eventually lifted a bottle of beer toward Magnus from across the fire. Magnus noticed the gesture, raised his own bottle in response, and both men drank.

Magnus exhaled afterward and looked at the bottle. “Would be better cold.”

Rick laughed.

“But considering the world ended,” Magnus added, “I’m guessing there are plenty of people out there who’d kill for warm beer behind two fences.”

Nobody disagreed.

Alcohol had loosened Magnus enough to make him smug, and for once he allowed himself to enjoy it. Only he knew how close he had actually come to dying inside that church, and nobody else needed the image of him battered, exhausted, unable to lift his own hammer while one final walker approached. The ridiculous version was better for morale, and if nobody believed the details, that was perfectly fine with him.

The truth could stay his.

For tonight, they could laugh.

Magnus spent another few minutes joking with Carl before finally rising with the Stone Sledgehammer across one shoulder. He hummed quietly to himself as he started another patrol around the exercise yard, ignoring the good-natured complaints from people who told him to sit down and relax. Celebrating too early was exactly how people lost everything they had just fought to gain, and Magnus had no intention of letting excitement make him careless.

He checked the outer fence.

Then the inner gate.

Then the watchtower approaches.

Plot knowledge was useful, but Magnus had learned long ago that this world no longer followed the original story perfectly. Amy was alive, Sophia had never disappeared for weeks, Carl had never been shot, Shane and Otis were both alive, and Merle still had both hands. If one loose section of fence or forgotten walker existed somewhere it hadn’t in the show, assuming otherwise could get somebody killed.

This prison was going to become their home.

Magnus intended to inspect it like one.

He was checking another section of fence when he realized somebody had quietly followed him away from the camp.

“Magnus.”

The voice came from behind.

Magnus turned instantly.

The Stone Sledgehammer spun backward through his right hand in a smooth arc and stopped with the barbed head only inches from the other man’s face. Shane froze, staring at the dried blood still caught around the Barbed Wire Mod. The same hammer had killed both walkers and a human being earlier that afternoon, and from this distance he could smell metal, rust, and old blood.

Magnus’s eyes focused.

Then recognition replaced the killing instinct.

“Oh.”

He lowered the hammer slightly.

“Shane.”

Shane swallowed once. “I just wanted to talk.”

Magnus rested the Stone Sledgehammer against his shoulder and studied him with a faint smile. “You followed me halfway across the yard in the dark because you wanted to talk?” He tilted his head. “What could we possibly have to discuss? I’m not Lori.”

Shane’s eyes widened.

For a second, all the exhaustion disappeared from his expression.

Magnus’s smile deepened.

The drunken storyteller from beside the bonfire was gone.

Shane suddenly wondered whether Magnus had been nearly as drunk as he had pretended to be.

Worse, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Magnus had known he was following him from the very beginning.

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