The Crows moved like a plague.
In the weeks following the Kingsport massacre, black SUVs and silent helicopters descended on towns across the region.
Ashville – Burned to the Ground.
Hollow Creek – Emptied.
Summersville – Erased.
Each attack was swift, brutal, and systematic...
Until they met Joe's people.
Time and again, the Crows sent out their "murders."
Elite kill teams designed to wipe out any resistance. And time and again, they vanished.
In a factory outside Hollow Creek, Daryl's crossbow bolt silently dropped a lookout, followed by Joe's suppressed rifle eliminating the rest.
In an ambush on an old highway overpass, Glenn's improvised explosives turned two Crows' SUVs into fireballs.
In the woods near Cedar Pines, Sasha's team outmaneuvered a patrol, erasing them in a night-long hunt through the trees.
Each fight ended the same way: no survivors.
...
Inside their hidden operations center, analysts pored over the map of the state.
Red markers denoted the teams that had gone dark.
The map was filling quickly.
"Seventeen teams lost in the last six weeks," one officer reported. "All in this sector."
A superior leaned over the table, tapping the growing cluster of X's in the center of the state. "They're not just surviving. They're hunting us."
"Triangulation complete," another analyst called out. "Based on engagement radii and response times… the source of these strikes is here."
A circle appeared on the map.
Smack dab in the middle of rural isolation, a perfect hub of roads and supply lines.
The officer's lips curled into a thin smile. "A base. Well-hidden, but not invincible."
He turned to the room at large. "Mobilize every remaining unit. Air and ground. We erase them completely. And when we're done, no one will even know they existed."
...
At that very moment, Joe stood on the guard tower of the prison, watching the sunset. The walls were strong, the gardens thrived, the children played safely within the courtyard.
But in the distance... far beyond what any eye could see. A storm was brewing.
A silent army was coming, black wings poised to descend on their home.
And this time, there would be no skirmishes. This would be war.
...
It started as a feeling in Joe's gut.
After months of constant reports about Crow movements, the sudden silence was unnatural.
No sightings. No ambushes. No raids.
"They're not gone," Joe told Rick one evening as they stood in the watchtower. "They're gathering."
Rick didn't argue... he felt it too. "Then we prepare."
...
Under Joe's command, the prison became a fortress in truth.
He ordered every scavenging party recalled. No one left the grounds without explicit approval.
The armories they had built over months of scrounging were emptied into defensive positions.
.50 caliber machine guns were mounted atop the towers, their barrels sweeping arcs across the fields beyond.
The rocket launchers and grenade launchers taken from an overrun military outpost were distributed to trusted fighters.
"High explosive only on the RPGs," Joe told Sasha as they prepped the launchers. "We save 'em for armor and air. Don't waste a shot."
Barricades were reinforced, fallback positions stocked with ammo, and escape routes mapped.
Though everyone knew they likely wouldn't use them.
"They want us gone," Daryl said grimly, looking out across the empty fields. "We make sure they bleed for trying."
...
It began just before dawn.
The low thrum of rotor blades reached the prison first, a sound that seemed to crawl through the walls themselves.
Then came the growl of engines.
"Contact!" the lookout shouted. "Multiple vehicles! Airborne inbound!"
Joe's voice cut through the alarm like steel. "Positions!"
The sky erupted as five black helicopters swept in low over the treeline, spotlights cutting across the yard.
Below them, trucks and armored vehicles roared down the access road, disgorging wave after wave of black-clad Crows.
The first rocket streaked skyward with a thunderous whoosh, slamming into a helicopter and sending it spinning into the trees.
Cheers erupted from the walls, immediately drowned by the pounding of incoming gunfire.
.50 caliber machine guns roared to life, shredding advancing infantry in sprays of dirt and blood.
Walkers drawn by the noise began to stumble from the woods, adding to the chaos.
For hours, the battle raged.
Explosions rocked the yard as grenades and rockets tore through enemy lines and the prison's defenses.
Losses mounted on Joe's side. Many falling victim to gunfire from above.
Jack went down first, struck by gunfire as he manned one of the towers.
T-Dog held the breached western gate until the very end, mowing down Crows until an explosion took both him and a squad of enemies with it.
Many of the Woodbury residents who had chosen to stay fell in the relentless crossfire.
Finally, as the sun climbed high and smoke blanketed the grounds, the last helicopter was blown from the sky by Daryl's final rocket.
The Crows on the ground faltered without air support, cut down by the .50 cals and disciplined gunfire from the walls.
When the last of them lay dead or fled into the trees, silence fell.
A hollow, deafening silence broken only by the groans of the wounded and the crackle of fires consuming what remained of the yard.
...
The prison had held, but barely. The yard was a ruin of churned earth and blood.
A section of the outer fence lay in twisted wreckage. The gardens, once their lifeline, were scorched and flattened.
Joe stood amid the devastation, helmet in hand, eyes sweeping over the survivors gathered in the yard.
Faces streaked with sweat and ash, some in tears, all hardened by what they'd endured.
Rick stepped up beside him, voice hoarse. "We won… but at what cost?"
Joe didn't answer right away. He looked out beyond the broken fence, toward the treeline.
The Crows had thrown everything they had at them… and failed. But he knew in his bones this wasn't the end.
"They'll come again," Joe said finally, voice low but unyielding. "And next time, we finish them."
...
The command center was in chaos.
Screens displayed the losses from the prison assault.
Five helicopters destroyed, over two hundred operatives dead, countless weapons and supplies gone.
Officers barked orders, analysts scrambled to salvage data, but the air reeked of desperation.
A senior officer slammed his fist on the central table, silencing the room. "We were humiliated by civilians! Farmers and scavengers! If word spreads that we lost..."
"It already has," another cut in bitterly. "Other cells are refusing deployment. Morale is crumbling."
The commander, a gaunt man in a dark suit who had until now stood silently at the head of the room, finally spoke.
His voice was calm, but it carried a deadly edge.
"Then we end this now. Everything we have left, every man, every bullet, goes to erase them. If we fail…"
He let the weight of his words settle. "…we cease to exist."
No one argued. Orders were given.
...
One Week Later.
The morning was deceptively peaceful at the prison.
Survivors worked quietly among the damaged gardens, repairing what they could.
Children laughed faintly in the distance, a fragile echo of a life they'd been fighting to protect.
Then the lookouts spotted them.
"Contact! Multiple vehicles inbound!"
The alarm was raised, but this time there was no panic... only determination.
The survivors took their positions, manning the .50 cal turrets, RPG teams in place, every rifle loaded.
Joe strode along the wall, barking final commands.
"Hold fire until they're in range! Priority targets are the choppers! When those are down, we pick them apart!"
The Crows came like a black tide, trucks, armored carriers, and two helicopters hovering low overhead.
The ground shook beneath their approach.
The first helicopter strafed the walls with machine-gun fire, but a rocket from Sasha's team hit its tail rotor.
Sending it spiraling into a team of Crows below, in a fiery explosion.
The second chopper tried to retreat, but Daryl's shot found it, detonating midair and raining debris onto the advancing Crows.
With their air support gone, the attackers lost coordination.
The .50 cals tore through their ranks, mowing down squads as they tried to breach the outer defenses.
Grenade launchers pounded the vehicles, turning them into flaming wrecks.
The Crows fought viciously, refusing to retreat, but the defenders were ready, disciplined, and relentless.
Hours later, the last pockets of resistance were wiped out, leaving the field littered with bodies and burning metal.
...
The cost was not light.
Several fighters lay dead, more were wounded, but the victory was absolute.
The survivors gathered in the yard as the smoke cleared, their faces marked by exhaustion but also by triumph.
Rick approached Joe, wiping soot from his face. "That was their last shot. They've got nothing left."
Joe scanned the battlefield, the black uniforms of the fallen Crows scattered like broken wings.
"They bled themselves dry trying to kill us," he said quietly. "Now they're finished."
He turned to the weary defenders. "We've bought ourselves time. Maybe even a future."
A cheer went up, ragged but heartfelt. For the first time in months, hope felt real.
Joe allowed himself a small smile, though deep down he knew this world never stayed quiet for long.
But for now... for today, they had won.
And that was enough.
...
They had barely begun to bury their dead from the battle with the Crows when the first groans echoed from the treeline.
At first, they thought it was nothing more than a straggler herd.
By the time the sun set, they realized it was something far worse.
Thousands of walkers emerged from the forest, an unstoppable tide of rotting flesh and gnashing teeth.
They pressed against the fences in a wave, moaning in an unending chorus that made the air itself vibrate.
For a week, the survivors fought without rest. The .50 cals rattled day and night until their barrels overheated.
Rockets and grenade launchers were spent within the first forty-eight hours.
They tore massive holes in the horde but barely made a dent in their numbers.
When the outer fence finally gave way under the relentless pressure, the yard descended into chaos.
"Gap at the west wall!" Daryl bellowed, voice hoarse from days without sleep.
"Get those cars in position!" Joe roared, hauling a wrecked SUV into place with Tyreese and Sasha while others poured gunfire into the advancing dead.
Inside, the children cried as walkers slammed against barricaded doors.
Amy and Andrea kept them hidden in the deepest cells, rifles at the ready, faces pale with exhaustion but unyielding.
...
One by one, people fell.
Bitten in the chaos of a breach, dragged down during a midnight assault, or simply collapsing from exhaustion and failing to get back up in time.
Hershel lost two fingers trying to save a wounded man before Joe yanked him back behind the line.
Tyreese fought like a man possessed until a walker tore into his side. He managed to kill it, but his wound would need treatment fast.
Glenn nearly died holding the east gate, saved only when Sasha cut through the swarm to drag him free.
By the end of the seventh day, their ammo stockpile was nearly gone.
The ground was littered with thousands of corpses, but more still came, drawn by the noise and the stench of death.
On the nineth morning, as the sun rose over a field of bodies and smoldering barricades, the last groan finally faded.
The horde had broken... not by victory, but by sheer attrition.
The prison stood, but only barely.
Of what had once been a thriving community of over seventy souls, only twenty-seven able-bodied adults remained.
Along with the Carl, Sophia and the four infants. All the other children had been lost in the chaos.
They were battered, bloodied, and hollow-eyed. The gardens were gone, the fences shattered, the towers leaning precariously.
Joe stood in the ruined yard, rifle dangling from his hand, staring at the mountains of corpses piled against what had once been their walls.
His face was blank, voice low when he finally spoke to Rick and Daryl beside him.
"We can't stay here," he said. "The Crows are gone, but so is everything else. Food, ammo… this place is a grave waiting to happen."
Rick nodded grimly. "Then we move."
Daryl spat into the dirt, eyes scanning the treeline as if daring another threat to come. "Question is… where the hell do we go?"
Joe glanced back at the survivors... his wives clutching their babies.
Carl and Sophia clinging to one another.
The men and women who had fought through hell to stand here.
"Anywhere but here," he said. "We've got nothing left to lose."
And with that, the last day of the prison closed, not with an explosion of violence.
But with the quiet, devastating realization that survival meant leaving behind the home they had bled for.