Chapter 21: After the Battle
Merle led his people into the fortifications in the camp's center.
Walkers rushed into camp and chaos erupted immediately. Walkers surged toward the fortifications with bared teeth and brandished claws.
Rick and Shane gripped their weapons, hacking and slashing desperately.
Neither man's combat skills were particularly strong, but their physical fitness was outstanding. Before their stamina ran out, no walker could break through them.
T-Dog, Morales, Dale, and others in camp also assisted in killing walkers, though their efficiency wasn't as high.
Tate and Jimmy, mixed among them, also took this opportunity to practice their killing skills earnestly.
Walkers gradually wandered to the vehicles on both flanks, their cloudy eyes staring directly at the reinforced windows.
Thunk—
A crossbow bolt pierced straight down through a walker's brain. It collapsed rigidly.
"Idiot!"
Daryl retracted his crossbow, reloaded, and continued attacking.
Inside the vehicle below, Amy was scared half to death, her ample chest trembling. Andrea gripped a hammer tightly in her hand, standing in front of her sister. She breathed a huge sigh of relief and comforted her.
"It's okay, the walkers can't get in!"
"Besides, I'll protect you. Don't be afraid!"
Andrea forced herself to hold it together, hugging Amy and soothing her.
Suddenly, a scream erupted from somewhere in camp. The voice was low—clearly a man's voice.
After just two cries, the sound disappeared.
This scream made people in several nearby vehicles panic. Especially Lori—tears welled in her eyes as she held Carl, watching through the car window as Rick and Shane fought bravely.
She didn't understand. Weren't family the most important? Why wouldn't Rick come protect her and Carl?
What about Shane? What about all those sweet words from before? Were they all lies?
Carol, standing beside Lori, looked even more panicked. Others might not recognize it, but how could she not?
That was Ed's scream. She covered Sophia's ears as the world in her heart began to collapse.
She didn't know what life would be like after losing Ed. She didn't dare think about it, didn't want to think about it.
This was why she could endure Ed.
Because of habit!
Walkers had no crisis awareness. They didn't know what lay below the cliff. They had only one goal—flesh and blood.
So even during free fall, they still waved their claws, wanting to reach the sweet internal organs.
Everyone relied on the defensive fortifications, attacking walkers in the center corridor from both sides. Walkers either fell or plummeted off the cliff.
The sky gradually brightened, edges tinged with pale clouds.
Caesar glanced at the twenty-some walkers still swaying in the center of camp, grabbed his axe, and jumped down from the RV.
Caesar charged fearlessly into the walker herd. With a Kootz kick, he sent a frontal walker flying.
Turning to borrow momentum, his axe easily severed a walker's head.
A walker charged from the right. Caesar smoothly used the top of his axe to strike upward into the walker's jaw.
Teeth shattered while the jawbone fractured.
Caesar glanced left. His left hand rose, shoulder dropped for an elbow strike, hitting the walker's facial bones dead center.
Stepping forward, his thick riding boots with hard heels crushed brains across the ground.
Caesar's movements were brutal yet graceful, like a killing rose on the battlefield. Every action was filled with violent aesthetics.
After several minutes of high-intensity combat, walkers littered the ground.
Caesar flung his hand axe. The axe left his grip and embedded itself in a prone walker's head. The skull split down the middle, contents flowing along the axe blade across the ground.
With Caesar's battle concluded, the quarry camp's fight officially ended.
After the battle concluded, Caesar's first order was rest.
Combat personnel who'd fought all night returned to vehicles to rest.
Non-combatants had to clean up corpses left in camp, sorting them—distinguishing who were sacrificed people and who were outsiders.
Caesar felt no need to cremate walker corpses. Just throw them off the cliff.
Surrounding animals would know to eat them, or the forest would purify them.
They wouldn't need to live at the quarry anymore anyway. Whether plague existed or not wouldn't affect them.
After briefly assigning work, Caesar went to sleep.
Camp corpses disappeared quickly, all thrown down. Blood and putrid flesh chunks were scattered and sparse—impossible to gather, so naturally they weren't dealt with.
Those who sacrificed last night used the pit positions Jim had prepared in advance.
Compared to what Jim dug, far fewer people had died.
Besides unlucky Ed, only a handful of unfortunate souls perished.
As for Ed? Well, Carol performed CPR on him—that is, she used a hoe to smash his chest. She also performed facial reconstruction surgery.
That is, she pulverized Ed's head. You could say Ed became very shattered and mangled.
When dragging Ed's corpse, his head completely separated from his upper body at the connection point.
Carol cried, trying to pick it up but couldn't manage it. She had no choice but to use stones to pound the flesh paste even more thoroughly. That way, once buried with dirt, you couldn't tell Ed was underneath.
Ed's situation was unique. Everyone in camp hated him, but they hadn't expected a living person from yesterday to be dead today.
An inexplicable feeling of "when the rabbit dies, the fox grieves" arose.
After cleaning up corpses, Carol quickly collected herself, grabbed yesterday's venison, and began cooking.
She knew she had no combat ability. To continue surviving in the group going forward, she'd need to either depend on others or rely on capability.
Culinary skills—or rather, domestic skills—Carol was confident she could excel at.
Carol and Sophia worked diligently together.
Even when several women wanted to help, Carol smiled and refused. "It's fine. You all go do other things. I can handle this myself."
Sophia was a sensible child. She helped her mother work without complaint.
Meanwhile, other children—like Carl, like Morales's two kids—were all playing.
Cooking smoke rose. It was as if last night's battle had been a nightmare. With the sun rising and hearth fires reappearing, the nightmare dispersed.
When Caesar emerged from the vehicle after waking, everyone who encountered him nodded gratefully, opening their mouths wanting to say something but ultimately stopping short.
Caesar felt somewhat baffled.
Merle appeared from nowhere, seeming to see through Caesar's thoughts. "Boss, everyone in camp sees you as a savior now."
"I guarantee, if you wanted any girl, just say the word—she'd definitely be willing."
"Mm, even if it was a boy... that's not impossible either!"
Merle spoke quite unreliably. Caesar acted like he hadn't heard, asking, "Are the corpses and everything dealt with?"
"Corpses are all handled. You didn't see it—when Carol was dealing with Ed's corpse, talk about bloody and violent."
Merle described it vividly, as if he'd been there himself.
"You saw it?" Caesar asked casually.
"No."
Merle waved his hand.