Bones and the cowboy quickly went back to the camp, not exchanging a single word as they went.
"Where did you two go?" Mama asked and Bones just pointed towards the street. She nodded and motioned him to come sit down, looking around and realizing the other one was missing.
"Lasso?" She called, slowly standing up but he was gone. Mama Williams sighed and looked towards Bones. "Do you know where he went?" She asked but Bones shook his head no and sat with Pippin.
"He wanders off all the time mom, he'll be okay." Pippin told her without looking up from her book. Mama agreed but was a little worried that he didn't tell anybody he was going off.
"Need me to try to find him?" Shiny offered but Mama just shook her head and sat back down.
Lasso was walking alongside the cracked road. He followed the trail of torn up or newly flattened weeds. He kept his head load and his hands near his holstered guns in case he caught up to the trio he saw earlier. He had left everything back at the camp, his food, canteen, so he was left to hope it wasn't too far of a walk.
He walked on, listening to the sounds of the forest. Leaves rustling in the light breeze, some sort of animal shooting from a bush away from him as he passed by, no noises were out of the ordinary.
It took the poor cowboy what felt like forever to finally hear some noises that weren't native to the forest. He heard talking, human talking, not the hungry groans of the monsters that shambled from their graves. His pace quickened but he moved more into the shade of the trees. He kept the road in sight but silently followed the sounds of people talking until he came up to a large wall made of sheet and scrap metal.
Lasso slowly stepped through the thick grass off the road, hearing dry snapping under his boots. He climbed up into a thick tree to get a better look and to stay more hidden. The tree did not give him enough height to see over the wall but he did catch sight of the two men in watch towers. In their hands they held large guns, and Lasso looked down at the street in front of the entrance and saw the street was thickly coated with old dried blood. He silently climbed down from his hiding spot and made his way more towards the side of the wall.
Climbing up another tree, a taller one this time, he could just barely peer over the wall. The cowboy was just out of sight of the men in the watch towers; he watched crowds surround what looked to be large pits in the ground. There was cheering and laughter but Lasso couldn't see what they were cheering on. He looked down for a moment to climb down before freezing. The cowboy could now see through the grass that the dry snapping was not of sticks.
Corpses.
Lasso had been stepping on human corpses that had dried out in the sun. The thick grass hid them well on ground level but from above he could see hundreds of them, scattered yards away. Some began to writhe and groan while others remained lifeless, full of bullet holes.
"Aye Mike! Did you hear that?" One of the men yelled from their watch tower to the other. They had both heard the crunching but neither could see a thing.
"I did but it's probably just a deer." Mike shrugged, putting his gun down and grabbing his canteen.
Lasso looked back down at the corpses below him, a that he stepped on were now moving. He groaned and turned back towards the wall. If he went down the tree he'd have to avoid the dangerous bites of zombies but if he hopped the wall he'd have to deal with actual people. Decisions decisions. What will the cowboy do? He took into consideration that the people inside were cheering loud enough that nobody would really hear him jump onto the scrap wall, that he assumed was built sturdy enough to hold at least his weight, which wasn't much.
Finally the cowboy made his decision. He took his hat off, bit the brim, and jumped. It wasn't a far jump luckily, and he gripped the top of the wall and clambered over. He dropped about twenty feet down the other side, tucking and rolling for a safer landing, popped back up to his feet. Dusting himself off, he was in.
"Uh- aye Mike!" One of the men up in the watch tower called.
"What Manny?" Mike asked, sighing.
"I think I just saw someone hop the wall," Manny chuckled nervously. "Should we follow them?" He asked looking into the town and seeing the cowboy sprint away from the wall, joining the busy crowds of the afternoon.
"Nah, how much trouble could one guy cause?"