The transition from the open porch to the dim, boarded-up interior of the house next door felt like entering a bunker. Morgan Jones moved with a frantic, practiced speed, throwing bolts and sliding heavy pieces of furniture across the door frames. The windows were covered with thick blankets and plywood, allowing only slivers of the orange sunset to bleed into the living room.
Ken helped carry Rick into the kitchen, laying him out on a pallet of blankets. The deputy was out cold, his breathing shallow but steady. Duane watched them from the corner of the room, still clutching his baseball bat as if it were a talisman against the dark.
"I'm sorry about the boy," Morgan whispered, his voice cracking. "He's... he's jumpy. We both are."
Ken looked at Duane and gave a small, weary smile. "Don't apologize for a kid protecting his father. He's got good instincts."
Ken spent the next hour organizing the supplies he'd scavenged from the hospital. He laid out the protein bars and the soda on the kitchen table, a humble offering of peace. He then turned his attention to Rick's head wound. Using the antiseptic and gauze from his pack, he cleaned the gash from the baseball bat. His movements were clinical and precise—the muscle memory of a man who had patched up shrapnel wounds in the back of a moving humvee, even if his current hands felt lighter and smaller than they should.
When Rick finally groaned and blinked his eyes open, the sun had fully set. The only light in the room came from a few flickering candles and a camping lantern.
"Ugh... Ken?" Rick muttered, clutching his head.
"Right here, Rick," Ken said, handing him a bottle of water. "Welcome back. You've got a hell of a knot on your head, but you're still in one piece."
Rick sat up slowly, his eyes adjusting to the silhouettes of Morgan and Duane sitting across from them.
…
Morgan had started a small propane stove, heating up a couple of cans of beef stew to supplement the snacks Ken provided. They sat in a circle on the floor, the steam from the stew rising into the shadows. For a moment, the sound of spoons clinking against tin bowls made the world feel almost normal.
"So," Morgan said, looking at Ken over the rim of his bowl. "You aren't just some kid. I saw how you moved out there and the way you patched up the Deputy... that wasn't 'scout' training."
Ken felt the weight of the lie before he even spoke it. He couldn't tell them the truth—that he was a twenty-eight-year-old Marine who had been magically transported from a future where their lives were a television show. They'd think he was insane, or worse, a distraction they couldn't afford.
He looked down at his stew, his grey eyes reflecting the candlelight. "My dad," Ken started, his voice soft but steady. "He was a Force Recon Marine. Served three tours. Since I was big enough to hold a ruck, he treated our house like a boot camp. He taught me tracking, first aid, tactical movement... even how to clear a room. He used to say the world was a dangerous place even before all this started. I guess he was right."
It was a half-truth. His father had been a hard man, but it was Ken who had earned the combat ribbons. By attributing his skills to a phantom father, he gave himself a cover that fit his eighteen-year-old face.
Rick nodded, impressed. "Sounds like a good man to have in your corner. Where is he now?"
Ken's expression darkened naturally. "He passed away a few years back. Cancer. I was just about to head to Parris Island myself when... well, when the lights went out."
"I'm sorry," Rick said sincerely.
"Don't be," Ken replied, shifting the focus. "We're alive. That's what matters."
The conversation turned to the "walkers," as Morgan called them. He explained the fever, the noise, and the terrifying reality that anything that got bit—regardless of how—would die and come back unless the brain was destroyed.
"They're everywhere," Morgan whispered, his eyes wandering toward the boarded-up window. "But there's one... she stays close."
Duane's face fell, and he retreated further into the shadows of the hallway. Morgan's voice trembled as he spoke about Jenny, his wife. He described her turning in the bedroom, the way he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger when he had the chance.
"She comes to the door," Morgan said, his eyes glazing over with tears. "She turns the knob. Like she remembers. Like she's trying to come home."
Outside, as if on cue, a low, melodic scraping sound drifted through the wood of the front door. The sound of a metal handle being rattled. Click. Click-clack.
Duane let out a stifled sob from the other room. Morgan buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking.
Ken looked at the door. He felt a familiar coldness in his gut—the tactical mindset that prioritized the living over the dead. To him, the creature outside wasn't a wife or a mother; it was a security breach. It was a beacon that would eventually draw more of its kind to their location.
He stood up quietly, his light frame moving without a sound. He looked at the heavy maglite in his hand, then at the kitchen knife tucked into his waistband.
"Morgan," Ken said, his voice a low, vibrating bass that commanded attention.
Morgan looked up, his face wet with tears.
"I can do it," Ken offered. His grey eyes were hard, devoid of the hesitation that plagued the two older men. "You shouldn't have to carry that weight. And Rick isn't steady enough yet. I'll go out the back, circle around, and end it. It'll be quick. She won't even know I'm there."
The room went silent. Rick looked at Ken with a mixture of pity and fear—fearing the hardness he saw in a boy so young.
Morgan stared at Ken for a long time. He looked at the teenager's brown skin, the black curls of his hair, and the ancient, soldier's soul staring back through those grey eyes. For a second, Morgan looked like he might say yes. He looked like he wanted the haunting to end.
Then, he shook his head.
"No," Morgan breathed. "No. Not today. I... I'm not ready. And you shouldn't have that on your soul, son. Not yet."
Ken wanted to argue. He wanted to tell him that his soul was already tempered in fires Morgan couldn't imagine. He wanted to say that leaving a threat at the door was a tactical error that could cost them their lives.
But he saw the way Morgan was clutching his son's jacket in the hallway. He saw the grief that was the only thing keeping the man tethered to his humanity.
Ken sat back down, the "Marine" in him yielding to the "Ken" who understood loss.
"Alright," Ken said softly. "But we keep a watch. Two-hour shifts. I'll take the first one. You and Rick get some real sleep."
…
Rick and Morgan eventually drifted into a fitful sleep. Ken sat by the window, peering through a small crack in the plywood.
The moon was high, casting long, skeletal shadows across the suburban street. He saw her—the woman in the nightgown. She was wandering aimlessly on the sidewalk, her movements jerky and unnatural. She looked so fragile, a pale ghost in the moonlight.
Ken gripped his flashlight. He felt a strange dissonance. He was eighteen again. His skin was tight, his joints didn't ache, and he had a full life ahead of him. But he was also a man who had seen the end of the world before it even began.
He looked at Rick, who was snoring lightly on the floor. In the "show," Rick was the leader, the hero, the man who would lose everything and keep standing. But here, in the flesh, Rick was just a confused, grieving father in a hospital gown.
I can't just follow the script, Ken thought, his eyes tracking the walker outside. I know what's coming. I know about the Governor, about Terminus, about Negan. I know about the farm and the prison.
He looked at his young, steady hands.
I wasn't sent here just to survive. I was sent here because I'm the only one who knows the map.
He leaned his head against the cool wood of the window frame, watching the dead woman walk into the shadows. He didn't know how he got here, but as a Marine, he knew his mission. He was going to keep this group alive, even if he had to become a monster to do it.
The phantom pain in his hip was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp purpose.
"Semper Fi," he whispered to the empty room.