The little boy was still throwing himself against the iron bars.
Even as strips of skin peeled away from his face and blood poured from his eyes, he kept coming, fingers scraping, arms outstretched toward his mother.
Every time his skull struck the metal, the sharp clang sent a wave of tension rolling through the cell block.
His mother stood frozen. Tears ran silently down her face as she watched him destroy himself.
I glanced at Maggie, Carol, and Daryl. They looked back at me with the same hesitation. Nobody said a word.
Finally, Carol stepped forward.
"Beth." Her voice was quiet but firm. "Take Mary away from here."
As Carol pulled out her gun, Beth understood immediately. She nodded and gently coaxed Mary to her feet.
"Come on, Mary. Let's get you back to your bed."
Her voice was low and careful, the kind you use when you're afraid the wrong word might shatter someone completely.
Mary understood what was happening almost instantly. Even with Beth positioning herself between her and Carol, she began sobbing harder. But she let Beth guide her a few shuffling steps at a time.
Carol drew a slow breath.
The boy snarled and clawed toward her through the bars.
She hesitated only a moment before stepping closer, raising the gun, and lining up the shot.
"No! Don't kill my baby!"
Mary tore free from Beth and threw herself between Carol and the cell door, arms spread wide, shielding her son with her own body.
Carol's finger was already tightening on the trigger.
The second I saw it, I moved.
I grabbed Carol's wrist and wrenched the gun skyward just before she fired. The shot tore into the ceiling. Carol stumbled back, the color draining from her face as the full weight of what had almost happened caught up to her.
Slowly, I took the gun from her grasp.
"Lucas, don't be afraid." Mary had turned toward the bars, arms still spread wide, as though she meant to step through the iron and embrace him. "Mama's here. You won't be alone. Mama's coming with you."
The boy snarled and reached for her through the bars, bloody fingers stretching toward her face.
What the hell is wrong with her?
Before he could grab her, I seized her arm and hauled her backward hard enough to send her sprawling onto the concrete.
Then I raised the gun.
And fired.
The bullet punched through the boy's skull. His body crumpled against the bars and slid to the floor.
For one suspended second, nobody moved.
Then the noise hit all at once.
"AAAHHHH!"
Mary's scream ripped through the block. The echo of the gunshot chased it down the corridor. Then the infected picked it up from their cells, one after another, until the sound became a wall with no edges left.
"You monster! You killed him!"
She slammed her fists against my chest again and again. I kept my hands locked behind my back, afraid that if I grabbed her, I'd kill her too. So I stood there and took the blows in silence until the strength finally ran out of her.
"My baby…"
The words broke apart into a sob as her legs gave out. She crumpled forward, still clutching my shirt. I caught her before she hit the floor and lowered her down gently.
Then I looked past her toward Beth and T-Dog.
"Take her."
Neither of them questioned it. They quietly lifted the half-conscious woman and guided her out of the block.
I stood motionless for a moment, then drew a slow breath and turned to face the rest of the prison.
Everyone was watching in silence.
"One of the eight is already gone." I let my voice carry through the block. "We can't afford to treat this as anything less than what it is."
"From this moment on, anyone showing symptoms stays under strict quarantine. Only those bringing food or medical care are permitted near the infected. Nobody else. No exceptions."
I looked across the gathered crowd. No one stepped closer to the bars. A few people drifted back without seeming to notice they were doing it. No one argued.
Their silence was answer enough.
Inside the cells, the infected gripped the bars. At first, it was light, tentative pulls, the instinct of trapped things testing their cage. Then the rattling grew harder with every passing second.
"Open the fucking door!"
A heavyset man near the front slammed both palms against the iron.
"Don't listen to this kid! Open it!"
No one moved. His eyes shifted to the people trapped in quarantine with him, people coughing, sweating, crying quietly into their hands. Something shifted in his face, fear folding over into something uglier.
"OPEN THE DOOR! I DON'T WANT TO BE IN HERE WITH THEM!"
The others started drifting toward the bars. Not shouting yet. Just restless movement, the slow tide of panic before it breaks.
One man coughed into his palm and stared at the blood smeared there as though he couldn't quite make sense of it.
Outside the cells, people watched from a distance. Most of the infected had blood running from their eyes now. Others were coughing it up. Then everyone's attention shifted to the old man lying motionless in the corner, worse off than all the others.
"It's not safe for everyone to stay here." I turned toward the people along the railings. "Go back. Wash your hands and your face."
People exchanged glances before quietly beginning to move.
The heavyset man kept rattling the door.
"You're locking us in here to die?"
Nobody answered him.
One infected man near the back had started breathing too fast, shoulders jerking with every ragged inhale as he stared at the blood on the bars. Another slid slowly down the wall and buried his face in both hands.
Then the shouting began—one voice, then another.
"Open the door!"
"I'm not dying in here!"
"We ain't dead yet!"
"Please... somebody help me!"
The infected crowded the bars. Some pleaded. Others raged. Soon, nearly everyone inside was slamming against the iron, demanding to be released. Once panic takes hold, nobody wants to think anymore.
"Everyone, calm down," I said.
"Then let us out!"
The same man drove both fists into the bars hard enough to split the skin across his knuckles.
"I don't wanna stay in here with them!"
The others immediately started shouting over him.
Hershel stepped forward. His voice cut through the noise like a hand raised in a storm.
"Everyone, calm down." He didn't shout. He didn't have to. "Panicking will not help anyone. Right now, we need to stay together and help each other."
He waited, letting the silence breathe.
"Look at the people outside these cells. They're frightened too. Hell, I'm frightened too. But fear doesn't mean we stop thinking. The best thing we can do right now is stay calm and keep our heads."
"So what?" the heavyset man snapped. "You just want us locked in here, helpless while we wait to die? You got a cure for this?"
Hershel fell silent.
Hershel looked toward me, and I could read his face clearly: we were losing them.
I stepped forward and tried to reach them, but the shouting had grown too loud. My voice disappeared into it.
Then Daryl moved.
Before it could spiral any further, he stepped up to the bars and drove his fist straight into the heavyset man's face. The man crashed backward onto the concrete, blood pouring from his nose.
"Sit your ass down." Daryl swept his gaze across the cells. "All of you shut the hell up and listen."
Slowly, the cell block went quiet. Not calm. Just the silence of people with nothing left to spend.
Everyone looked to me then.
"We don't know what kind of flu this is yet," I said carefully. "So for now, everyone needs to stay calm."
Several people stepped farther back. One of the infected pulled his shirt up over his mouth and stared at the blood on the bars. Another dropped heavily onto the lower bunk and rubbed both hands over his face, like he was trying to wake himself out of a nightmare.
"I know this isn't what you want to hear. And I want you to know...Hershel and I are not giving up on any of you."
A man near the front tightened his grip on the bars until his knuckles went white. Next to him, someone had started crying without a sound, shoulders shaking in small, helpless tremors.
"But forcing your way out right now only puts everyone else at risk. Stay calm. Stay inside the cells until we understand what we're dealing with."
I held their eyes for a moment before adding:
"Work with us. Please."
Quiet settled over the block again. Not trust. Not relief. Just people at the end of their rope, trying very hard to hold on.
One by one, the others drifted away from Cell Block D after we sealed it off as a quarantine zone.
Afterward, we carried the boy's body outside and burned it.
The night that followed was brutal. Nobody trusted each other anymore. Unease moved through the prison long after the smoke dissolved into the dark, something shapeless and persistent, like a sickness already spreading before anyone had learned its name.