The forest guzzled the summer sun. Bright, domineering light poured into the pit of a boundless evergreen void. It flanked the road on either side. Two solid walls of bark and leaves; of browns and greens. They loomed high. Their branches reached out above Jon’s head in an enteral struggle to reach each other across the asphalt. Branches, trunks, leaves and shrubs whizzed on by, melding into a single form. An illusion. Just like the figures beyond the tight-knit trunks. Familiar shadows of days gone by played among the evergreen void. The dead weren’t out there. Not here. They were illusions. Just illusions. Nothing more.

If one of them is out there, who would be best? Grenn mayhaps? His strength would be invaluable. But so would Samwell’s smarts. As would Pyp’s aim. And Dolorous Edd always knew who to brighten up a… No. Stop that. They aren’t bloody wares at a market to be haggled over, to be weighed and compared. They were men. Good men. Honest men. Brave men. They didn’t deserve to die. A second life, now that’s what they deserved. Whoever’s out there, may the gods show a bit of bloody mercy for once.

The wind had a certain, homely chill to it. Like an excitable child, it whispered in Jon’s ears, played with his hair and tugged on his cloak. In all this sun and shine, a little cold was welcome even if it was but a summer chill, and a southern one at that. Not that warmth was unwelcome. Andrea was warm. Her warmth seeped through her back into his chest, through her arse into his groin. The women of this land had a much higher tolerance for immodesty. A woman of Westeros, even a northern one, would have been insulted or embarrassed by the situation they were in. She would have been teased afterwards and whispers of her maidenhood would have spread about barracks and long tables for weeks to come. Well, not all women would feel such shame. Beyond the wall, he’d be the one being whispered of. It’d be his manhood that would be the subject of gossip around the fire. The jests and japes would be unending and most would come from the woman herself.

Ahead, the pickup truck led the way. Jon’s stomach sang Glenn’s praises. Thanks to him, Andrea had been forced to slow some. Behind, Sam followed on his motorcycle. He kept a safe distance. Perhaps he knew better than to get too close to Andrea. 

Their little procession made good time along the roads. They passed through fields and forests, long straight stretches and winding turns, unblemished paved roads and cracked, crumbling ones. How long until every road crumbles away? 

Jon caught her looking again.

Throughout the whole ride, their eyes kept meeting. Just a small glance here and there as their aimless gazes born of boredom crossed paths. Each time, Beth stiffened and looked off to nowhere in particular. She seemed quite relaxed for someone without a harness. She was bizarre. Why hate him? She knew he’d been right. The dead were dead. Not sick. Dead. And yet, her eyes dripped with poison each time they met his.

A man stood on the side of the road. 

Not a shadow. Not a trick of the mind. A real man. He whizzed by, fast as a bullet yet, Jon caught a glimpse of him. 

Fat and clad in black.

Jon squeezed Andrea’s waist. “Stop! Pull over!”

Andrea veered to the side of the road. A horrible screech pierced the air. White smoke erupted from the tyres. Gravel dust clogged the air. The wind died. The air stood still. Jon leapt from the bike and bolted down the road’s gravel shoulder. More screeching filled the air. The fat man clad in black turned to face them. He was the right height. The right shape. A black cloak draped past his shoulders. It had to be him. It was Samwell. The distance between them obscured the features but, it was the right face. Pale, round and black hair. Samwell began moving towards Jon along the road’s shoulder.

“Jon?!” Andrea called after him.

“The hell’re you up to, boy?!” Sam yelled.

As the distance closed, Jon slowed. Samwell’s eyes were yellow and green. Long strips of pale flesh dangled from his chubby cheeks. A growl grumbled in the back of his throat. The corpse staggered along the gravel, shuffling and tripping over his feet. His hands reached out, raking the air with cracked nails slick with grime. Jon stopped. The cloak wasn’t wool. It gleamed beneath the summer sun. Silk not wool. His skin was dark. Not pale. Dark. Not as dark as T-Dog’s but still, dark.

Sam appeared at his side, huffing and puffing. “What-” He fought for breath. “What the hell’re you doing?”

“Jon, what’s wrong?” Andrea appeared on his other side.

“It’s not him.”

“Not who?” She asked.

Gravel crunched beneath the corpse’s feet as he shambled closer. Faster crunching approached from behind.

“Did you know this guy, Jon?” Glenn asked.

“Not unless Mo travelled to fucking Westeros,” Sam said.

Andrea shot him a glare and grasped Jon’s arm. “Does he look like one of your friends?”

“Aye, from a distance.” A pit hollowed Jon’s stomach. He ought to be upset. A brother was lost out there somewhere, in need of help. He ought to be relieved. If the corpse had been Samwell, Samwell would be dead. At least I could have buried him. At least I could have said goodbye.

Rot’s sour stench burned the back of Jon’s throat. Sam heaved his sledgehammer over his head. Flesh became pulp and bone became splinters. Black and brown viscera sprayed and splattered. The fat corpse crumpled onto his side. Black blood oozed onto the gravel.

“Fucking Mo the Magician…” Sam muttered. “Had him do some tricks for James’s birthday when he was a tyke.”

“He performed at my 8th birthday party,” Beth said. She approached the corpse with slow, small steps.

“He any good?”

“No.”

“Still the same old Mohammad then.”

“He was a kind man,” Hershel said.

Sam smiled. “Yeah…” He pulled a knife from his belt, cut off the corpse’s shirt and lay it across his caved-in head.

“If he was all dressed up, does that mean he was performin’ when it all started?” Beth asked.

“Probably,” Sam said.

“You think the kids’re okay?”

Sam avoided Beth’s eyes. “Yeah… Yeah, they’re probably fine.”

“They’re not,” Jon said.

Beth flashed him a glare. “How would you know?”

“Because children are the first to die in times like these. Them and the sick and elderly.”

“So? That doesn’t mean these kids are dead. My daddy’s old and he’s still alive.”

“Why do you think it is Carl is the only child in our group?”

“We’re kids!”

“No, we’re not.”

“God, just have a little hope for once!”

“Oh, yes hope. It’s easy to hope, isn’t it? On your little farm, hidden from what’s real. Aye, I’ll simply pretend that the dead aren’t dead. Then they’ll just come wandering out of the woods right as rain, won’t they?”

Beth’s scowl flared and tears brimmed in her eyes. “Bein’ nasty ain’t gonna fix nothin’ neither!”

“Alright, enough,” Hershel snapped. “Both of you, separate. Now.”

“We’re wasting time.” Jon twisted out of Andrea’s grip and made his way back to the motorcycle.

The stench of the corpse stalked him. It loitered as he waited for the others. Jon slipped his brother’s dagger out from beneath his belt. It caught the sun’s glare as a dazzling gleam. He ran his finger along the flat of the blade, over the subtle bumps and diverts left behind by a blacksmith’s hammer. On The Wall, the cold would bind bare flesh to the metal as if it were covered in sticky resin. Even when the sun shone. 

The metal warmed his fingertip.

I shouldn’t have said those things. What’s the harm in a bit of hope?

Andrea sat down in front of him. Her back faced him. “Don’t be an ass, Jon.” She put her helmet on. “I get you're upset but don’t be an ass.”

“I’m not upset. I was wrong to say what I said, but I’m not upset.”

“Then you’ve got no excuse.”

Jon put the dagger away.

“She’s out here, Jon. Same as you and me, risking her life for others. And guess what? She’s lost people too. We all have. If she finds comfort in hoping for the best, then let her be.”

“Aye… I know.”

The pickup truck and Sam’s motorcycle roared to life and sped off down the road. Andrea remained parked.

“We need to follow them,” Jon said.

Andrea turned around to look at him. “Tell me you’ve got your head in the game.”

“I do.”

“Do you? If we find something out there like that again, are you gonna freak out on me? Are you gonna keep seeing ghosts? If you are, tell me and I’ll take you back right now.”

Jon bristled. “No. I can control myself. I’m not a child.”

Andrea stared long and hard at him. “I’m trusting you, Jon.”

“You should.”

Andrea nodded and turned back around. As she began tying up her bandanna around her mouth, a latent question simmered in the back of his mind.

“That bad dream you had last night? What was it about?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it about a sky of eyes and a sea of black blood?”

“What?” Andrea turned around. “What kind of fucked up dreams are you having?”

“Well, was it?”

“No.”

“How do you know if you don’t remember?”

Andrea sighed. “Because it was about Amy and my dad, okay?”

“Oh. I- I’m, uh, sorry.”

“It’s fine. It was about their deaths. I saw them, like I was there as it happened all over again. I saw Amy get pulled over the hood of that car and swallowed up by the horde. I heard her screams and smelt the blood in the air. And I saw my dad… get stabbed and Amy… Amy screaming over his corpse, pushing her hands on his chest and the blood seeping between her fingers.”

“Death dreams… I’ve had those too. They’re horrible.”

“Yeah…”

“Your father, he… he died during all this?”

“During all this. At the start. The… the dumbass. A little while before Amy and I met these guys, we were looking for food on the outskirts of Atlanta. We came across this guy. He was covered in blood, shaking like a leaf and begging for help. My dad tried to help him and the asshole put a knife through his heart. The wide eyes, the begging, the shaking, all stopped after he pulled out that knife. He snatched up all our food and ran off. He just left us there. No sorry. No nothing. Didn’t even look back as he ran off, the little bitch.”

Jon’s scars ached. “An awful way to die.”

“Yeah… Well, he’s better off for it. My Dad. Amy too. It’d have killed them eventually. They weren’t cut out for a survivor’s life.”

“Aye, I suppose.”

“Alright asshole, you owe me now. How’d your dad die?”

“Nothing as spectacular as yours. I found out about his death from a letter. A king cut off his head for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“I’d call that pretty spectacular. My dad got stabbed by some random dipshit. Yours got killed by a king.”

“A boy king and a shit one at that.”

Andrea shrugged. “Still, a king’s a king.”

Jon chuckled. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

Andrea twisted the motorcycle’s handle and the engine gave a mighty roar. Vibrations coursed through Jon. He threw his around her waist. The wind whipped his face. A spray of gravel erupted behind him. The world turned to blurs once again.

***

A smog of rotten stench hung over the McMillian farm. Corpses clumped around the farmhouse, wandered between the rows of green tents, and stumbled through the fields. In all, Jon counted about thirty of forty. More than manageable.

As Andrea sped after Sam down a thin, dirt road through the fields, Jon took in the sight. Tents huddled around an aged farmhouse. All green. Jeeps, bikes and cars accompanied the tents. All green. Matching uniforms and armour covered the corpses. All green. An army. A tank sat out in the field, idle, like a slumbering beast of steel. Some other odd vehicle was out in the fields too. Like a windmill, it sported four blades that stemmed from a central point. They rested atop a rounded cab. Like a sled, it sat upon skids. Like a dragonfly, it sported a long tail. Another smaller set of four blades sprouted from the end of the tail. A powerful army.

Hershel stuck his head out of the pickup truck’s window and waved for them to pull over. They came to a screeching halt on the side of the road in a grass field. Glenn rushed to meet them, trailed by Beth and Hershel. Sam threw his helmet to the ground as he dismounted.

“God fucking dammit!” He kicked the helmet.

“Calm down!” Andrea snapped.

“Calm down?! Look at ‘em all! We’re fucked on time as it is!”

Glenn arrived. “We got lucky last time. The dead were bound to become a factor eventually.”

Sam faced the farm. He ran his fingers through his hair and took several deep breaths.

“There are two fronts to consider,” Jon said. “The fields and the farmhouse. Most of the dead are around the farmhouse but, as we deal with them the field corpses will swarm us.”

“We’ll focus our numbers on those around the farmhouse,” Glenn said. “One of us can take the pickup and run down the field walkers.”

“Daddy should,” Beth said.

“Me?” Hershel said.

Beth pointed at his hand. “You ain’t no use in a fight no more.”

Glenn nodded. “While Hershel clears the fields, we’ll position either bike on opposite ends of the farm.”

“Split their forces,” Jon said.

“Exactly. You and Sam can-”

“Oh my God! Guys, look!” Beth shouted. She pointed at the farm. “In the upstairs window!”

A bed sheet banner hung out an upstairs window. Written across it in childish scrawl were four words.

Help Stuck Baby Inside

“We gotta help ‘em!” Beth said.

“They’re likely dead already,” Jon said.

“Or it’s a trap,” Sam added.

“Either way, we can’t do anything until the dead are, uh, more dead,” Glenn said. “We’ll make three groups. Andrea, Sam, place your bikes on opposite sides of the house. Rev those engines as loud as you can. Jon, Beth and I will make the third group and make as much noise as we can. We’ll split their forces in three. After that, we sweep the house.”

“And if those people are alive, we’ll help them?” Andrea asked.

“Of course, we will,” Beth said. “There’s a baby. How’s it even a question?”

“We’ll help them if they’re alive and friendly,” Glenn said.

“Let’s move out,” Jon said.

As one, they rushed back to their vehicles. Jon followed Beth and leapt into the bed of the pickup truck. Dirt and dust smogged the air. Engines roared. They were thrown to the bed’s floor by an invisible hand. Rotten eyes and dismembered faces converged on their approach. Aimless shambling froze. Dull groaning and droning snuffed. The mass of corpses around the house shambled to meet them. Shrill, screeching wails filled the air.

The pickup truck screeched to a halt a fair distance from the house. Beth leapt from the bed. Jon tossed her, her weapon. A knife fastened to the end of a pole by a thick layer of duct tape. He drew Longclaw and leapt after her as Glenn bolted from the driver’s cab wielding a machete. He pointed it at the porch and the back of the house.

“Sam, there! Andrea, there!”

Sam and Andrea screamed on by either side of the pickup truck. Rooster tails of dirt, dust and shredded grass followed them. The horde’s steady approach faltered. The corpses turned on each other, throwing themselves into one another as they tried to follow three opposing targets.

Glenn slapped the pickup truck’s roof. “Go! Go! Go!”

The pickup truck roared and sped off into the fields. Hershel set his sights on a pair of walkers shambling towards the house and ran them down. Black blood sprayed into the air. A black streak smeared across the grass. The truck veered to the right and set its sights on another shambling corpse. All around the farm, out in the fields, corpses converged on the farmhouse. Most from quite far away.

Deafening revving roared.

“Make some noise! Wave your arms!” Glenn waved his machete in the air. “OVER HERE!”

“HERE!” Jon made himself as big as possible and waved Longclaw about like a madman.

“WE’RE OVER HERE!” Beth waved her spear above her head.

Jon drew deep, squeezing every ounce of noise from his lungs and then some. His lungs burned. Glenn’s and Beth’s shouts and screams rang in his ears. But they were infantile compared to the roar of two engines. The horde split in two. A dozen or so walkers shambled towards Andrea. Even more towards Sam. Four shuffled towards Jon.

“Fuck!” Glenn poised his machete to strike.

Beth readied her spear. “What do we do?”

“Kill the dead and split up!” Jon dropped Longclaw into a steady, two-handed long point guard. “You two help Sam! I’ll help Andrea! Quickly, now! Charge!”

Glenn and Beth’s cries intermixed with the revving of engines as they charged the dead. Jon raised Longclaw above his head, twisted and robbed two corpses of their heads with a sweeping slash. Fountains of black blood spurted from their necks as they collapsed in a heap. The heads snapped their jaws as they stared at Jon with bulging eyes. Glenn brought his machete down on a corpse’s head with both hands. Black blood covered his hands. As the corpse collapsed, he wrenched his blade free of her skull. Beth planted her feet and thrust her spear through a corpse’s mouth. The blade burst out the back of his neck. Black blood sprayed out of the wound. It oozed out of the mouth, dribbling down the spear’s shaft. The walker's eyes bulged. He gargled a wailing cry and struggled against the spear, skewering himself further and further. Beth screamed and yanked on the spear. The knife caught in the wound. She scrambled backwards, dragging the wailing corpse with her. It reached for her, raking the air with cracked, blood-crusted nails.

Jon and Glenn descended on her, weapons poised.

“I’ve got it!” Jon yelled.

Glenn backed off and Jon brought Longclaw down on the back of the corpse’s head with all his might. The blade ate through flesh, bone and the shaft of Beth’s spear. The corpse crumpled to the grass and dragged what remained of Beth’s spear from her hands.

She stared at it, eyes wide. Her rot-soaked hands trembled. “What do I do? It’s broken.”

“Leave it.” Jon whipped out Needle and shoved it into her shaking hands. “You know how it works, aye?”

She gripped the pistol and gave a small nod.

“Come on, Beth. Sam needs our help,” Glenn said.

“R- Right!”

Beth and Glenn raced off together towards Sam. A pack of walkers closed in on the giant man as he swept his sledgehammer back and forth, caving in the temples of the dead. While Sam attacked, Andrea retreated. She ran backwards, facing the encroaching horde. A knife tumbled blade over hilt into a corpse’s face. It fell and in an instant, the horde trampled it, swallowing it whole. Jon raced around the horde’s flank, drawing the attention of several pairs of yellow eyes.

I could draw them away. Divide their forces. No, strength in numbers.

Jon joined Andrea’s side, hacking down a corpse on her flank. “Forget the knives! Use your gun!”

Andrea drove her last knife through a corpse’s forehead. “Fuck that, we’ve gotta make these rounds count!” She yanked her knife free. The corpse collapsed only to have its spot filled by another.

Jon robbed two corpses of their heads. “This is what we’re saving them for!”

Needle’s shots rang out, exploding above the deafening wail of the dead.

Andrea stabbed a corpse in the eye. It tripped as it died, stealing her knife from her grip. “Argh, fuck it! Fine!” She whipped out her gun.

Corpses on the flanks began to circle in on them.

“Back up! They’re closing in!” Jon yelled.

Together, they turned and ran a dozen paces.

“Turn!”

They turned and Andrea took aim. Thunder clapped from the barrel of her pistol, shredding Jon’s ears. The back of rotting heads burst with black, bloody rot, spraying the faces of those who shambled behind them. Eight rounds were fired. Five corpses fell. Two remained. A man clad in a green uniform and a woman clad in green armour shambled towards them.

“I’ve got it,” Jon said. “Save your ammo.”

“Be careful.”

Jon smiled at her. “No promises.”

Andrea smirked. “Fuck off.”

Jon met the two remaining corpses with a sweeping, overhead swing. Longclaw caught the neck of the unarmoured corpse and ate through it like butter. The second corpse’s helmet stopped Longclaw in its tracks. The blade splintered the helmet but the head remained intact. As the corpse wailed and reached for him, Jon yanked Longclaw free. He kicked the walker in the chest, knocking her off her feet. Longclaw pierced between her eyes. She lay still, staring at the sun. A name tag over her breast read Lt Winchester. Jon tried to forget that as he turned his sights on Sam’s horde.

Corpses littered the grass, forming a trail towards the others. Glenn and Beth looked on as Sam delivered a blow to the final corpse of their horde. He swung his sledgehammer over his head. The hammer’s head crashed down on the corpse’s skull. It caved. Blood and brains oozed through the cracks as it toppled over onto its back.

“You bit? Scratched?” Andrea asked.

“No. You?” Jon asked.

“All good.” Andrea looked out into the fields. “Fucking hell… GLENN!” Andrea pointed past Glenn.

The pickup truck wasn’t moving. Its wheels spun, kicking up a spray of rot, grass and dirt. Two corpses hammered on the windows with rotting fists.

Glenn turned around. At once, he shouted, “SAM AND I WILL GET HIM UNSTUCK! YOU THREE SWEEP THE HOUSE!”

“GOT IT!”

“AYE!”

Glenn and Sam mounted the motorcycle and sped off out into the fields. Beth met Jon and Andrea before the house’s porch.

“What do we do?” Beth asked.

“We move as a single unit. You two keep at my back. I’ve got armour. I can block the corpses if need be.”

Beth and Andrea nodded.

“We’ll head straight upstairs?” Beth asked.

“No.”

“What? But the baby-”

“Has survived this long. If indeed it has. It can wait a few extra minutes.”

“We gotta make sure walkers don’t sneak up on us,” Andrea said.

Beth gummed her lips. “Fine.”

“How many rounds have you got?”

“Ten,” Andrea said.

“I’m out,” Beth said.

Jon held out his hand and she returned Needle. He whipped out his dagger. “Take this. You’ll guard the rear.”

Beth took the dagger and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Jon slipped his brother’s lost dagger into his dagger scabbard. They hurried up the stairs of the front porch. The steps creaked and wobbled underfoot. A dead corpse lay sprawled out on the stairs. A pool of dried, red blood covered the boards beneath his head. The front door had been left open ajar. Small, uniform holes littered it. The stench, sour and rotten, seeped out from inside the house. Jon opened the door and wrapped Longclaw against the door frame. Three, sharp hits. Bang. Bang. Bang. He retreated back to Beth and Andrea. They waited half a dozen heartbeats. No response; dead or alive. 

“Slowly, now,” Jon said.

He crept through the doorway, Longclaw poised to thrust. Light made itself scarce inside, barred entry by shuttered windows. The doorway led into a small lobby, which led into a long hall. The hall’s door lay on the ground, its hinges torn from the walls. More small, uniform holes covered the walls. Splatters of blood accompanied the holes. Rot soaked into the carpet. Each creak and squelch underfoot rang as loud as gunshots amidst the silence. Flies swarmed around two dead corpses. Maggots festered in tiny, pinpoint wounds on their foreheads and gaping wounds on the back of their heads. They had no wounds on their stomachs. Nothing had torn into them. Their guns lay beside them within arms reach. Jon stepped over them, eyes trained on the dark. No movement. No sound.

“Did these people kill each other?” Beth whispered.

“Looks like it,” Andrea said.

“Why would they do that? They had so much here.”

“Don’t search for reason. You’re not likely to find it,” Jon said.

They came across the first door of the hall. Jon shouldered it open and took a step back. Light streamed through a blood-caked window. A corpse sat hunched over beneath the window. Bullet wounds covered her chest. Her head was fine.

“Lurker,” he whispered.

Andrea readied her pistol. Beth raised her knife. They nodded. Jon slapped Longclaw against the floorboards. No response. A variant? Or hard of hearing? Jon stomped his foot. The corpse’s eyes flickered open. A hissing screech passed through her lips as she struggled to her feet. Jon checked his blind spots. Empty. He charged and thrust Longclaw. The valyrian blade pierced between her eyes. The screech caught in her throat. Black blood cascaded down her face. She slumped again. Her yellow, rotting eyes stared at Jon, glassy and unblinking.

“Dead?” Andrea asked.

Jon flicked Longclaw. “Dead.”

Jon rejoined them in the hall. Thump. Thump. Thump. Beyond the darkness at the end of the hall, heavy thumps shook the floorboards.

“The hell?” Andrea hissed.

“Form up. Let it come to us.” Jon stepped in front of Andrea and readied Longclaw.

“What if it ain’t a walker?” Beth asked. “We should say something.”

“No. We’ll find out.”

“She’s right, Jon. What if they have a gun?” Andrea said.

Jon clicked his tongue. “We mean no harm! We’re here to help!”

A deep, gravelly growl answered any doubts. Beyond the shadows of the hall, a towering form began to emerge. Tall and broad of shoulder, it towered a head and half over Jon.

“Move back to the end of the hall. Give us space,” Jon said.

“Be careful.”

Andrea and Beth moved to the back of the hall. Jon moved back too, putting space between him and the light pouring through the open doorway. He dropped Longclaw down to his side. He’s tall. Better to thrust through the chin rather than open myself up by swinging overhead. 

Grenn’s corpse stepped into the light. 

A neck as thick as an auroch’s. It’s not him. He’s wearing green. Grenn stopped and stared at Jon. A broad flat face that only a mother could love. He wears no sword or dagger. It’s not him. A tremble plagued Jon’s hand. Fool, it isn’t him. It can’t be. It’s not. But he had his eyes. Those squinted, dull eyes so often full of bewilderment.

“Jon, kill it! What are you doing?!” Andrea shouted.

Grenn’s eyes snapped to Andrea. He broke out into a sprint. With a sweep of his long, thick arm, Grenn swatted Jon aside. The arm caught him in the rib. Jon slammed against the wall and fell to the floor. An invisible blade stabbed him between the ribs.

For the Watch.

The white winds howled. A giant raged. Men screamed.

The air raced from Jon’s lungs, stealing his strength with it. Andrea raised her gun. Thunder cracked. Grenn’s shoulder exploded. Andrea shoved Beth out of the way. Grenn barrelled into Andrea. The floor shook. Pinned beneath Grenn’s hulking mass, Andrea’s legs kicked and her hands pushed against his face. Jon fought to stand. He fought to raise Longclaw. But his fingers were stiff and clumsy. 

For the Watch.

The white winds howled. A giant raged. Men screamed.

Andrea’s scream and Grenn’s growl mixed together into a single, awful sound. Beth’s joined them. She lunged forward and plunged Jon’s dagger into the back of Grenn’s skull. Grenn collapsed and Andrea threw him off.

“Andrea!” Jon croaked. He reached for her.

“Are you okay?” She shouted.

Black blood coated her face in a vile mask of rot. The whites of her stood in great contrast. The invisible blade stabbed Jon’s side as he tried to stand. My ribs…

A round face. A red face. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“Are you bit?! Are you bit?!” He yelled.

“No! Why can’t you stand?! What’s wrong?!”

Beth sobbed and screamed. “What the hell was that?! It ran!”

“I think…” The corpse didn’t have Grenn’s face. “I think my ribs are broken.” The nose was all wrong. The jaw was too narrow. It wasn’t him. She almost died and it wasn’t him.

Beth’s tear-stained face appeared in front of his. “Let me see.” She reached for his side.

A round face. A red face. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

“NO!”

Beth yelped and scrambled away.

“F- Forget me. Check her for scratches. Check her for bites.”

Beth gave a quick, skittish nod and scampered back over to Andrea. She scrubbed the blood from her face as Andrea tried to fend her off.

“I’m fine. He didn’t get me. Help Jon.”

“No, dammit,” Beth snapped. “Let me check!”

Jon and Andrea fell into silence as Beth looked Andrea’s face over. When she lifted Andrea’s shirt, Jon looked away. His eyes found themselves looking at the corpse again. His face is wrong. He’s wearing green. He has no sword or dagger. What was I thinking? Trembles worried his hands. Every breath felt short. She almost died. I almost killed her. Tears brimmed in his eyes. He scrubbed the cursed things away. He wouldn’t cry. He wasn’t a boy. A man. He was a man. Ten and seven. That’s a man grown. Lord Commanders don’t cry.

A thousand whispers beggared him. “Lords Commanders shouldn’t be murdered by their own brothers, yet here you are Lord Snow.”

Jon grit his teeth and forced his legs to stand. Searing heat scorched his chest. He staggered over to Andrea and, forgetting his courtesy knelt beside Beth as she inspected Andrea’s chest.

“Is she scratched?” He managed.

“I’m fine,” Andrea said.

Beth shook her head slowly. “I can’t find anything.” She put Andrea’s bra back in place and lowered the shirt.

Andrea’s shoulders sagged as she let out a sigh. “Fuck…” She gave the corpse a quick glance. Despite the black grime, her face looked ghostly pale.

Jon stammered. “I’m sorry, I- I don’t know what-”

Andrea waved him off. “Fuck off. It’s fine. I’m fine. We’re all fine…”

“Did you swallow any blood?” Beth asked.

“No.”

“What about-”

“No. I shut my eyes.” She raised both hands. Her voice wavered. “Give me some fucking space.”

Before either Jon or Beth could move, Andrea lurched to the side and spewed all over the hall’s fallen door. On hands and knees, she made a horrible, guttural cry as spewed again and again and again. After three bouts, she sobbed, spat and stood. “We’re not done.” She staggered past Jon and Beth, gripping her pistol tight.

Beth shot to her feet. “Wait!”

Jon struggled to his. He paused. Outside, footsteps thundered up the stairs. The lobby door flew open. Blinding sunlight filled the hall. Sam burst inside, sledgehammer at the ready.

“The hell’s going on? We heard shots!” He shouted, craning his neck to look down the hall.

Glenn and Hershel rushed in after him.

“Beth?!” Hershel shouted.

“It’s been dealt with…” Jon said.

“I’m okay, Daddy!”

“Thank the Lord…”

Andrea turned around. “Jon broke his ribs. Take him outside.”

Sam lowered his hammer. “How the hell’d you manage that?”

“I’m fine.”

“He’s not,” Beth said. “Daddy, can you see to him?”

“Course. Come on, son.” Hershel offered him his maimed hand.

“No, I’m fine. I’m needed here.”

“Jon, if you’re ribs are broken you can’t swing your sword,” Glenn said.

“I can,” Jon snapped. Pain coursed through his chest.

It must have shown for, Sam patted him on the back. “Go on, tough guy. We’ve got it from here.” He strode over to Andrea’s side.

“I’m fine,” Jon said.

“Beth, you too sweetheart,” Hershel said. “Come where it’s safe.”

“I can’t, Daddy. The baby. Whoever’s up there might need my help.”

“I’m fine.” Jon found his voice came out small.

A pained look crossed Hershel’s face as he nodded.

“We’ll look after her,” Glenn said.

“Alright… be safe.” Hershel grabbed Jon’s hand.

Jon found himself being led out the door. His legs moved on their own. “I’m fine…”

“Sure, son. You’re fine.” Summer’s sun warmed the air. “Sit down here.” Death’s stench soured the air.

Jon’s arse planted itself on the porch’s steps, right beside the dead soldier. Hershel sat on the opposite side of the corpse and began removing Jon’s layers.

“Let’s take a look at you.” Hershel placed his cloak, mail and shirt in a pile on the porch behind them.

Sun kissed Jon’s chest, warming it even further. Fire danced on his skin and magma pooled in the tapestry of scars across his front, on his side and on his back. Hershel pressed on his side and the invisible blade returned. An invisible blade. A blade. A blade.

For the Watch.

A round face. A red face. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

Piercing cold snuffed warmth.

“STOP! NO!” Jon shoved Bowen Marsh away from him.

Hershel’s side hit the step. He lay there for a moment just staring at Jon, wide-eyed, mouth agape. Jon’s shame had never reached such heights.

He held his head in his shaking hands. “I’m losing it… I’m fucking losing it… I’m seeing bloody ghosts.” Pins and needles pricked his fingers.

Hershel got up and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You’re still here, where it’s safe. Not there. Here.”

Jon nodded. He stripped his hand of its glove and felt his chest. Warm. Not cold. Warm. Shadows danced in the woods beyond the farm. Jon ignored them.

“They’re broken, my ribs.”

“Can I find out how many?”

Jon nodded. Hershel touched his ribs one by one. As the invisible blade stabbed again and again, the shadows kicked up a frenzy. Jon ignored them and felt his warm chest as he gave Hershel a nod for each stab.

“Three. Could be worse.” Hershel handed Jon his cloak.

Jon shrugged into it. Soft cloth hugged his arms and swaddled his torso. The shadows died and the pins and needles faded. His scars hurt.

“My scars hurt.”

“Your chest?”

“Aye.”

“Just your chest?”

“Aye.”

“Not here?” Hershel touched him above the heart.

“No.”

“You short of breath?”

“Not anymore.”

Hershel nodded. “Muscle pain, most likely. Nothing to worry about. All that sword swingin’ probably.”

“I’m sorry I pushed you. I thought- I saw- He was- … I’m a fool.”

“You saw who did that?” Hershel touched the scar above his heart.

He stabbed me in the belly. Not the heart. “I saw nothing. He wasn’t there. None of them are. I’ll never see them again.”

Hershel gazed upon Jon with a sad look. His eyes searched his. After a moment, they broke away and he began unbuttoning his shirt. He lifted his undershirt and revealed a patch of ruined flesh on his belly.

“A going away present from Vietnam. She’s got a sister on the back, thank the Lord. Would have killed me otherwise.” Hershel smiled. “Kinda funny ain’t it? I mean, who saves the medic?”

Jon smiled despite himself. “Who did it?”

“A boy. A little younger than you. The Vietcong held no qualms about using children. They took what they could get, I suppose.”

“And you see him?”

“Oh, he hasn’t visited me for quite some time now. Around the time Beth was born, now that I think about it.”

Jon opened and closed his scarred, sword hand. “He may have tried to kill you but, it’s different. It was war.”

“It was.”

“He was your enemy and you were his.”

“Technically.”

“The men who… who stabbed me were supposed to be my brothers.”

“And when their time comes, they’ll be judged for it. Rest assured.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do.”

“And you believe me?”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t they contradict one another?”

“Maybe, but the… the bible said the dead would rise.” Hershel looked around at the carnage that surrounded them. “I don’t know if it meant like this. That’s the beauty of it. We can’t know. Not until it’s over. Maybe it’s real. Maybe it’s not. It don’t concern me. While I live, death ain’t here and when death does arrive, I won’t be here. Same with heaven. Same with God. So, I may as well keep on believin', huh? What’s the point in stoppin’?”

Buzzing flies filled a lingering silence. They swarmed around the corpses in thick, black clouds.

“Will my ghosts ever stop visiting?” Jon asked.

“One day, son.”

“Which day? How will I know when it comes?”

Hershel smiled. “You won’t know until the day arrives. But when it does, you’ll know. It’ll lift off you. Like takin’ off a big ol’ backpack.”

A scream pierced the air. High and shrill. A girl’s scream. Hershel shot to his feet and rushed inside the house.

“Beth?!” he bellowed.

Jon hurried after him, pain be damned. They found Beth at the end of the hall, on her hands and knees at the bottom of a staircase. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Vomit splattered against the carpet. Sobs and retches mixed into an awful, guttural cry. Glenn knelt beside her, holding her hair and rubbing her back. He stared past her with wide, glassy eyes. Trembling plagued his hands.

Her teary eyes found them as they rushed down the hall. “D- Daddyyyyyyy!” she wailed.

Hershel dropped to his knees beside her and swaddled her in his arms. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Beth buried her face into his chest, responding with only muffled wails.

Hershel stroked her back. “Glenn? Son, talk to me. What happened?”

Glenn blinked at him. “It, uh- he…” He looked over his shoulder, up the stairs.

A great splintering crash shook the house. The sound a shield might make upon buckling. “Son of bitch! You goddamn motherfucker!” Another crash shook the house. It came from upstairs. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!”

“Sam!” Jon called out.

Silence answered. Stomping footsteps approached the staircase. Sam appeared at the top from around a corner. Blood dripped from his knuckles.

Jon began to climb the stairs. Each step stabbed him in the side. “What is it, Sam? Is anyone hurt?”

“Fuck yes, somebody’s fucking hurt!”

“Is it Andrea? Is she okay?”

“What?” he snapped. “N- No. It’s- that bastard he fucking- ARGHHHH!” Sam punched a hole straight through the wall.

Jon reached the top of the stairs and placed his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “Go outside. Clear your head.”

“I can’t.” Sam’s breathing hastened. “I- I- I- gotta bury ‘em. They deserve that much. Not him though. Not that spineless, pixie-dicked bitch! I won’t do it! Never! Fucking never!”

“Sam!” Jon summoned the voice of a Lord Commander. “Calm yourself, now!”

Sam looked about to kill him. Then about to cry. In the end, he did neither and, wandered down the stairs. He sat beside Glenn on the bottom step and held his head in his hands.

Jon found Andrea at the end of the upstairs hall, standing in a doorway without a door. Scratches covered every inch of the door frame. A corpse with mangled legs and broken fingernails lay in a pool of black blood to its right.

“You shouldn’t see this,” she said barely above a whisper.

“I don’t think I’ve got a choice now, aye?”

Andrea looked back at him with tears in her eyes. They carved valleys in her mask of blood and grime. She bowed her head and stepped aside. The whole house stunk of death but even so, it couldn’t hope to compare to the wave of putrid stench that washed over Jon.

A man lay slumped over a crib with a hole in the side of his head. His brains painted the wall beside him. No gun lay at his feet. His body blocked his hands. Jon crept towards the body. Throughout his time admits war and strife, Jon had seen a hundred gruesome sights. Yet still, he baulked at what he found in the crib. A crimson crust covered the babe’s front, from the gash across her neck to the bottom of her tiny rib cage. Thick, white maggots squirmed in her open throat. She looked up at him with a squall frozen upon her face. A knife lay in the fingers of the man. Blood covered the blade.

Jon stared. It didn’t make sense. A knife? But the brains are on the wall. How? Who had-

The answer sat slumped in a corner, on the other side of the room. A boy. No older than Carl. A pistol lay on the blood-soaked carpet just beyond his blood-soaked hand. He had a hole beneath his chin and in the top of his head. Blood and brains painted the ceiling. He started at Jon with bright blue eyes, not blinking, never blinking.

Andrea touched Jon’s shoulder. “Sam wants to bury them.”

“Aye. We should.”

“Have we got time?”

“We’ll take them back with us.”

“Even him?”

“No. Never.”

The first step was the hardest. But after it was taken, the rest rushed to be next and before he knew it, Jon was crouching before the boy. He put an end to the staring, concealing those bright blue eyes from the world for the final time. Jon lay him down. His brother’s lost dagger cut through the blood-soaked fabric of his shirt in one clean, slice. He covered the boy’s head and face with the shirt.

“Have you got your bandanna still?” Jon asked.

“Yeah.” Andrea pulled it from her pocket.

“Do you mind?” Jon gestured to the crib.

Andrea shook her head and held the bandanna out to him. “I- I can’t-”

“It’s okay.” Jon eased the bandanna from her grip.

He cleared the coward’s corpse out of the way. It crashed to the floor. The bandanna obscured the babe’s frozen squall and open neck. Blood soaked through the bandanna’s white pattern. Jon took off his cloak and lay it over the crib. The blood and pain of days gone by hid behind the black cloth of a dead, distant world.

***

No one acknowledged the stench as they stripped the roof. It hung over them, an invisible, sour smog. Nothing smelt worse. Not shit. Not piss. Not vomit. Not even blood. The smell of rotting flesh held no equals, though still, no one acknowledged it.

Not Sam as he removed the bolts from the sheets of tin with a tool known as a drill; a device that looked like a gun but served only to install or remove screws and bolts. Not Beth as she collected the bolts into a plastic container. Not Glenn nor Andrea as they handed the unbolted sheets to the ground. Not Hershel as he helped Jon stack the sheets into a pile. Jon had smelt rot’s stench more times than he could count. And the current stench was nowhere near as bad as the stench in Atlanta. Still, Jon could not ignore it. It nagged at him, prodding him each time as his mind began to wander. Not even his pain could distract him.

“You don’t gotta do this, son. Rest. Before you make it worse.” Hershel squatted with Jon. The tin roofing’s crinkled cut allowed each sheet to perfectly slot into one another.

“I’ll rest when we return.”

Jon and Hershel stood.

“Will you?”

“Aye.”

They approached the side of the house. Andrea and Glenn lowered a sheet over the side.

“You better,” Andrea said.

“It’s not just a little bruise, man. Take it seriously,” Glenn said.

Jon grit his teeth and resisted the urge to snap at him. “I will.” He and Hershel took the sheet from them.

As they carried the sheet over to the pile, Jon studied the helicopter out in the fields. Windmills have similar blades but Jon had never seen one of those take flight.

They dropped the sheet onto the others. “Explain it to me again, the helicopter.”

Hershel wiped his brow with his maimed hand. “When the blades spin, they push air towards the ground. The force of pushin’ all that air down creates lift that pushes the helicopter into the air.”

“It pushes up and down at the same time?”

“Well, uh yeah.”

“How?”

Hershel rubbed the back of his head and looked at the helicopter.

Sam laughed. “Give up, doc. He ain’t gonna get it. It’s like tryin’ to explain physics to a rock.”

“Shut up,” Andrea snapped.

Sam chuckled. His drill whirred a piercing scream. Jon and Hershel approached the house again. However, the so-called helicopter functioned it would be an invaluable asset. If Aegon the Conqueror had taught Westeros anything, it was that flight trumped all. That and fire. Surely, there had to be some kind of science in this world to replicate dragon fire.

“Who invented the helicopter?” Jon asked as he and Hershel accepted another sheet of roofing.

“Leonardo da Vinci, I think,” Hershel said.

“Does he have texts on his invention? Could we find them in one of your libraries?”

“Probably,” Glenn said.

“Not in any local libraries,” Andrea said. “Maybe a state library… shit… we lost the fucking internet… It’s all gone, right? I mean, there’s no way any of the servers are still running.”

They all stopped and stared at her as if all coming to the same revelation.

“Should I even bother asking?” Jon asked.

Hershel patted his shoulder. “Maybe another time.”

“You know, da Vinci didn’t invent the helicopter,” Sam said.

“Yeah, he did,” Glenn said.

“No, he didn’t. He just made a thing that could fall real slow. Igor Sikorsky invented the first real helicopter in like, 1939.”

“Really? They’re that recent?” Glenn asked.

“Yeah, man. Flight’s only like a hundred years old.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Andrea asked.

“You never read a book?”

“Didn’t know you could read.”

“Oh, would you look at that? She’s got jokes. Fancy that.”

“Can you fly it?” Jon asked.

“What?” Sam laughed. “Fuck no. I just studied their design at college, is all. That thing out there may as well be a heap of scrap metal. Same goes for the tank. They ain’t your every day, mom and pops Sudan. You can’t just hop in one and ride away. This other shit, though?” Sam pointed at all the abandoned jeeps and bikes scattered around the farmhouse. “This we can use.”

“Not with the amount of gas we have left,” Beth said.

Sam shrugged. “We’ll just make more.”

“You know how?” Glenn perked up.

“Nope, but it’s gotta be possible right? That scientist friend of yours is pretty smart. I’m sure he can figure it out. Hell, maybe he knows how to fly a copter or drive a tank.”

Glenn deflated. “We’ll ask him. Let’s get back to work. We’re burning daylight.”

Sam grinned. “Yes, boss.” His drill let out a screeching wail.

As Jon and Hershel carried the sheet to the pile, Jon caught a glimpse of them again. They didn’t look human, covered by his cloak, in the back of the pickup truck. Just two small lumps. Not two dead children. Just two lumps. The lumps would go in the ground and then they’d just be two wooden crosses, at the base of a hill in the shadow of a barn.

“Don’t stare, son,” Hershel said. “Look too long and you’ll lose yourself.”

Jon tore his eyes away. “Aye. You’re right. I’ve seen it happen to others far too many times.”

Hershel nodded.

“HELP!” A shout came from the woods. Shadows danced beyond the trunks and shrubs.

Everyone froze. Everyone stared. The shadow grew larger. The shrubbery ruffled. A man erupted onto the fields. A hulking mass of a man with dark skin and desperate eyes. In his arms, he cradled a girl. Blood gushed from the stump of her missing hand.

“PLEASE! PLEASE, HAVE MERCY PLEASE!” Tears streamed down his cheeks.

Behind him a boy with fair skin emerged, wielding an axe covered in blood. “P-Please! We’re not dangerous! She’s hurt!”

Hershel raced across the fields.

“Hershel!” Glenn shouted. His next words faded into nothing.

There was a ghost behind the boy.

“We gotta...”

An older man.

“Quit yappin’ and fuckin’…”

A man clad in black. A cloak. A black cloak. Made of wool and cloth. A round face. A red face. Like a pomegranate.

The white winds howled. A giant raged. Men screamed. And the white winds howled.

Can’t they see the giant has been cut? They have no idea. His strength. Men will die. A horn, I need a horn. Wick has a knife. Put it away. It’ll scare him, it’ll- he cut me… why? There’s blood on the side of my neck. I’m bleeding. Why did he cut me? 

For the Watch.

I caught his arm. He’s backing away. His eyes are speaking. “No, not me, it wasn’t me.” But it was. It was you. Men are screaming. I need Longclaw. My fingers are so stiff and clumsy. It won’t come loose. Come loose! I need you!

A round face. A red face. Tears are streaming down his cheeks.

For the Watch.

He punched me in the belly. His hand left behind a dagger. Why is there a dagger? Where did that come from? Why is it inside my belly?

They were running. All of them. His friends. The strangers. Across the fields. They were running to meet each other. The man was screaming. His daughter didn’t have a hand. The boy was crying. Hershel was helping them but still, the boy was crying. The tears were smudging his glasses. The ghost stayed where it was. Silent and still. It stared at him.

Longclaw left its scabbard without a fight this time. They were screaming at him now. Why? What’s wrong? The boy was in front of him now, between him and the ghost, arms wide, eyes wider. The boy was yelling at him. He didn’t look very old. A few years younger, mayhaps. He needed to move. He was in the way. If he didn’t he would die.

Arms wrapped around Jon’s chest. Big arms. The ground abandoned his feet. A chest pressed against his back. Longclaw cut the air.

“God dammit, kid! Fucking stop!” Sam’s voice erupted in his ears.

There were too many voices. They were all screaming so loud. Together, they made each other indiscernible. Only one cut above the others.

“What are you doing?!” Cried the boy with glasses. “Leave him alone! He’s our friend!”

Sam’s arms squeezed him in a crushing vice. “Drop the sword, Jon!”

“Let go of me,” he heard himself say.

“No.”

“I have to kill him.”

“Fuck off!”

“It’s okay.” Bowen Marsh stared at him with a pair of dead eyes. “Let him go. It’s less than I deserve.”

---

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Next chapter - Bowen Marsh has been granted a second life. He has to die. For honour's sake. For justice's sake. Rick and his squalling pack of children can't see that but, it makes no matter - Jon doesn't need their permission.