Shane opened his eyes to see Carl and Sophia staring at him, Carl with a big goofy grin and Sophia with a scared frown.
"What are you two goofballs doing?" Shane realized he must have fallen asleep while Hershel was stitching his bullet wound.
Thankfully the bullet didnt hit any vitals and it should be a swift recovery.
"Uncle Shane!" The two yelled with smiles.
"Uncle Shane you've been shot! Now me, you and dad have all been shot!" Carl said with a big toothy smile.
"Uncle Shane are you okay?" Sophia asked with a pout while looking at Carl like he was dumb.
"Hahaha!" Shane ruffled Carl's hair before telling Sophia he was fine and getting up and giving her a pat on the back which made her smile.
"I told you he would be fine! I knew it!" Carl said with a smile.
The creaking of a door opening could be heard and they all looked over and saw Rick enter with a smile.
"Glad to see you up and walking." Rick pat him on the shoulder
"Same here. Whats the situation." I asked while putting on a shirt and black jacket.
"Yall two run along." Rick said and the kids ran off.
"Nothing happened during the night so it seems were fine for now." Rick said with a frown.
"For now. That crew didnt have any food on them or anything except for their gear meaning they were either out of food or with another group and seeing as how they were armed I doubt they couldnt secure any food."
"Yeah. So whats the plan now?" Rick asked while handing him a glass of water.
"Ill rest up for a week and then well clear the prison. Make sure everything is packed and ready to go." Shane took a sip of the water before walking outside with Rick.
"Where is the gear they had?" He asked
"In the RV, Daryl already cleaned it all up." Rick said
"Thanks." He patted Rick on the back before heading to the campsite.
He met the rest of the group who were still looking a little tense after hearing about yesterday's affairs but when they saw him they all looked a little more relaxed.
"You had me worried Shane." Amy hugged his arm as they watched the crackling fire as they cooked breakfast.
"Im sorry." He rubbed the back of her head.
"I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Daryl," Shane said aloud causing Daryl to look at him.
"Damn right," Daryl said while licking his fingers clean.
"How are y'all so relaxed after killing those people?"
Everyone looked at Maggie who had been sitting with Glenn. A few of them also wanted to ask but they were scared.
"Its not my first time and I have a good reason." I shrugged before going back to eating causing everyone to look at Daryl.
"Those assholes shot my bike, they had it coming." Daryl licked the sausage juice off his finger.
No one could tell if Daryl was bullshitting or if he was for real.
No one looked at Andrea or T-dog as they both seemed to care a little though not really that much.
Shane ate breakfast and then went to the RV where he saw the sets of gear they had taken from the people. They had stripped everything down to their shoes.
"A military vest?" Shane picked up a black vest before laying it outside on a rock and grabbing a white spray paint can.
He shook the can before spraying a huge skull over the vest and let it dry before putting it on under his black jacket.
"I am the punisher," Shane said in a deep voice before chuckling and swinging his m16 over his shoulder.
—————————
"One more!" Shane screamed at the group of people who were covered in walker blood from head to toe.
Their hands were shaking and they did everything they could to suck in another breath.
They're muscles burned in pain and they could taste the metallic in the air from the walker's blood.
Corpses of walkers were stacked like a wall in front of them.
After a few days of getting everyone in the group comfortable with taking down walkers, Shane decided it was time for more realistic training.
In reality, the chance of their being a single walker coming at you was slim.
Most likely if there was one there were more.
So he and Rick set up a training group.
Rick with a few other men would lead packs of walkers onto the farm property where the others would be waiting.
Of course, he was nearby to make sure no accidents happened and the training took place outside of the fenced property so no walkers could go onto the farm.
They couldn't use any guns in the training so they were feeling extremely tired after hours of killing walkers.
This training was also good to get them used to working with others in a group as well as getting used to being uncomfortable.
In the apocalypse, you hardly ever get in a fight while being at your peak strength and energy. He learned that in his last life.
"Shane we can't. I'm serious, we need to stop." Andrea said seriously.
Amy didn't say anything but she looked about ready to puke.
Maggie and Beth both had tears in their eyes from the pain.
Everyone else looked ready to pass out.
"Is that what you're going to say to the walker when you're tired and your life's on the line? Uh Mr Walker pwease spare me a few minutes to rest?" Shane said mockingly.
"I know you have more in you because you're still breathing!" Shane yelled and Rick and a few others were coming over with a group of twenty walkers following behind.
"Fuck me," Glenn whispered before getting off his knees and gripping his knife tightly.
Shane heard a few people start to whine and cry out but he didn't say anything.
Right now they could whine all they wanted but next time it wasn't training they wouldn't have anyone to whine to except the walker in front of them.
"Trust me when I say no matter if you feel like you can't breathe and you're about to pass out, until you do you always have more in you.
You have to accept the pain, you have to brainwash yourself into liking it. Don't think of anything except for sucking in one more breath." Shane said and finally the twenty or so walkers finally got close enough to the group and they started stepping out of line before stabbing one in the head and stepping back into line before they all took a few steps back.
A few hours later after a few people blacked out they finally ended the training for the day.
Sadly for them they had to wake up at 5 am and do it all over again.
——————————————-
1 week later
Shane put down his binoculars and looked over at Daryl and Rick.
He nodded at them with a frown.
"They're there."
Rick and Daryl looked pissed while the others also looked annoyed.
"This is the only road to the prison that isn't jammed up or covered in hordes of walkers. We have to take this one." Daryl said.
"We're going to have to do what we talked about," Rick said while looking over at Lori and Carl who were sitting in the truck looking at them.
"They have about ten men from what I can see from here. Of course, some might be hidden too well for me to see but I think we can take them." Shane said while looking into the forest where they had been ambushed by the military group before.
They had to take this road to the prison but Shane had assumed that the group might lay another ambush waiting for them to take this road again.
And he was right.
"Let's get locked and loaded then," Daryl said with some bloodlust.
He was indeed pissed about his bike being shot but he remembered what he had seen a few days ago on the highway with the others.
A sea of walkers. A sea of death heading straight towards the farm.
They couldn't turn around and the people in front of them were in the way.
So they had to be cleared.
Shane got all of their main fighters locked and loaded.
The group of people involved in this gunfight would be him and Rick.
Daryl, Andrea, T-Dog, Glenn, Maggie, Amy, Carol, Hershel, and Dale for sniper support.
A few of them would be wearing ghillie suits and surround the men in a circle while the rest would move in from one side and try to distract them long enough for those in the ghillie suits to pick them off.
"Let's move."
Slowly they disappeared in the woods and slowly and methodically advanced while keeping the advantage of surprise.
A while later they were only a few hundred meters from the men who were hiding under bushes and leaves.
Everyone was holding their breath and a few of them felt like puking.
Some were finding it hard to breathe, the adrenaline coursed through their veins.
Getting into a gunfight for the first time in their lives was nerve-wracking but it's not like they had much of a choice.
A few of them could only think of Shane's saying over and over again.
'One more breath. One more breath.'
Finally, everyone was in position and the signal was Shane's first shot so he gripped his rifle and aimed it at one of the men who seemed to be on lookout while the others took naps in rotation.
Holding his breath he felt the cold metal of the trigger and squeezed.
Bang!
The loud bang of the gun firing made his ears ring but he ignored it as he heard a barrage of guns go off as everyone else in the surrounding forest started lighting the men up.
Occasionally he would see a bush get splattered in blood or someone who had been shot stood up on instinct only to get shot in the head and dropped like a bag of potatoes.
'Nah they aren't that well trained. Maybe wannabe military at most unless the Army is training pussies in this world who knows.' Shane thought while tucking behind a tree and watching as the bark got shot off the tree and the tree dust flooded his mouth.
Whizz!
A bullet traveled right by his ear causing a buzzing noise to sound out.
'Mother fucker!'
He jumped out and rolled to the next tree before looking at the grass a hundred meters in front of him and seeing the muzzle flash.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
He shot three times into the leaves and heard someone scream so he fired another five shots before looking to his right where he saw Daryl put an arrow into a man's neck who had been trying to sneak up behind Glenn.
"Gah!" The man grabbed his neck and tried to breathe but could only die choking on his blood.
Looking to his left he saw Amy and Andrea safely firing shots from behind a thick log.
They were mainly there just to cause chaos and lay down cover fire while the people in ghillie suits did the main work.
Speaking of, he could hear gunshots being fired from all different directions which was the work of the people in ghillie suits.
A few minutes later the men who had been directly in front of him had been killed but he could hear someone laying down fire in the direction of Rick who was in a ghillie suit so he moved in.
He ran through the brush toward the direction of the shots and saw someone's head peeking out of a pile of leaves with a rifle.
Taking slow steps he got as close as he could but the sound of the leaves crunching alerted the man.
"What?!" He turned around and aimed his pistol at Shane but he had already double-tapped him in the head.
Bang! Bang!
The man fell to the ground with his eyes wide.
Crouching down Shane heard the forest go quiet.
All the nearby bugs and animals didn't even make a single sound.
They quickly stripped a few bodies of their gear before returning to the vehicles where the others were waiting.
Sadly they couldn't loot all of the gear as they couldn't take the risk.
Someone could still be alive and hiding waiting for the chance to shoot so their plan was to just slowly make their way out of the forest without being seen.
Shane made it back to the truck and everyone else was fine except T-dog got grazed on the arm.
Everyone hugged each other and Shane gave a hug to Amy who looked sick and patted Rick on the shoulder but no one said anything.
There wasn't anything to talk about.
They just did what they had to, even if they didn't want to.
Vroom!
They started up the vehicles and made their way toward their new home.
The prison.