Chapter 27: Shane's Hunt
POV: Shane
The death residue around Shane had grown so thick it felt like wearing a cloak made of shadows. He could feel it himself now—the weight of Otis's blood, the corruption that spread through his soul like cancer, the creeping certainty that he was becoming something his old self would have despised.
But that old self had been weak. Naive. Unable to make the hard choices that kept people alive in this new world.
Shane watched Jake from across the farmyard, noting the way the freak's eyes tracked his movements with supernatural awareness. Those dead-sensing powers worked both ways—Jake could feel the darkness clinging to Shane's spirit, could see the violence that stained his hands.
Which made him a liability that couldn't be tolerated much longer.
"Jake," Shane called out, forcing casualness into his voice. "Need you to help me track some deer. Winter's coming, could use the extra meat."
Jake's response was immediate suspicion—his body language shifting, hand moving unconsciously toward the knife at his belt. The freak's paranoia was justified, but it didn't matter. Shane had planned for resistance.
"Sure," Jake said finally. "Where did you see them?"
"North ridge. About a mile into the woods. Private spot where we can talk without interruption."
The last part was true enough. What Shane didn't mention was that the privacy would serve a different purpose than conversation.
They walked into the forest in comfortable silence, Jake staying slightly behind and to Shane's left—a position that spoke of tactical awareness and deep mistrust. The freak had learned to read dangerous situations, but he wasn't quite paranoid enough.
When they reached the clearing Shane had scouted the night before, he turned with practiced casualness and let his mask finally slip.
"You're dangerous, Jake. To all of them."
Jake's hand went to his knife immediately, but Shane was already moving. The hunting blade appeared in his fist like magic, honed to razor sharpness during hours of obsessive preparation.
"This is for their protection," Shane said, and lunged forward with the speed of someone who'd crossed every moral line and found the other side liberating.
POV: Jake
The knife came at Jake's throat with lethal precision, but his medical training kicked in before conscious thought could interfere. He threw up his left arm in a blocking motion, catching Shane's wrist and deflecting the blade away from his carotid artery.
But Shane was bigger, stronger, and completely committed to murder. He drove forward with his full weight, slamming Jake backward into a oak tree with enough force to rattle his teeth.
"He's really going to kill me. This isn't a threat or intimidation—this is an execution."
Jake's alchemy responded to pure desperation, reaching out to the knife even as Shane drew it back for another strike. He'd never tried to transmute an object while someone else was holding it, but survival demanded innovation.
The steel blade began to change under his power, its molecular structure shifting from hardened carbon steel to something far more brittle. Shane felt the change mid-swing and his eyes widened with confused horror as his weapon disintegrated against Jake's forearm, metal shards scattering like confetti.
"What the—"
Shane's question was cut off as he tackled Jake to the ground, abandoning subtlety for brute force. His hands found Jake's throat, fingers pressing against the windpipe with trained precision. Shane had choked people unconscious before—it was a police technique, clinical and efficient.
Jake's vision began to darken as oxygen became a distant memory. His hands clawed at Shane's wrists, but the deputy's grip was like iron, unbreakable and merciless.
"Going to die. Actually going to die here because a paranoid cop decided I was a threat. Survived walkers and the CDC and everything else just to be murdered by someone I was trying to protect."
Desperation triggered something primal in Jake's consciousness. His necromancy reached out wildly, searching for anything dead within range. The forest floor was littered with winter casualties—small animals, birds, even a deer that had died from disease a few weeks earlier.
But Jake's power found something else. Three frozen walker corpses from the winter cold, shambling remnants that had wandered into the woods and succumbed to Georgia's unseasonable freeze.
"STOP HIM!" Jake screamed with the last air in his lungs.
The dead obeyed.
Three ice-covered walkers lurched upright from their hiding places among the fallen leaves, their movements jerky and unnatural but unstoppably strong. They shambled toward the struggling men with mindless determination, responding to Jake's desperate command.
Shane felt them coming before he saw them—some primitive instinct screaming danger. He released Jake's throat and spun around just as the first walker reached him, its frozen hands grasping for his shoulders.
"Jesus Christ!" Shane scrambled backward, pulling his pistol and firing wildly. "What did you do?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
The gunshots echoed through the forest like thunder, but Shane was already running. He crashed through the underbrush with the blind panic of someone whose carefully laid plans had collapsed into nightmare, leaving Jake gasping on the ground behind him.
POV: Daryl
The gunshots came from the north ridge—three quick pops that could have been Shane putting down walkers or Jake defending himself. Either way, it meant trouble.
Daryl ran through the forest with the fluid grace of someone who'd learned to hunt before he could properly walk, his crossbow ready and his senses extended for any sign of danger. The shots had stopped, but something was still wrong—the woods felt disturbed, violated by violence.
He found Jake first, lying beside a massive oak tree with bruises already forming around his throat. The young man was conscious but breathing hard, his eyes wide with shock and something that might have been guilt.
"Shane?" Daryl asked, though he already suspected the answer.
"Tried to kill me," Jake gasped, his voice barely a whisper. "Walkers... I made them stop him. He ran."
Daryl helped Jake to his feet, noting the scattered metal fragments that had once been a knife and the disturbed ground that spoke of a desperate struggle.
"Which way?"
Jake pointed deeper into the woods, toward the sound of distant screaming that was growing fainter by the minute. They followed the trail of broken branches and scattered equipment, tracking Shane's panicked flight through terrain that Daryl knew like his own backyard.
They found him a quarter mile away, or what was left of him.
Shane Walsh lay torn apart in a small clearing, his body bearing the unmistakable wounds of walker attacks. But these weren't the methodical feeding patterns Daryl was used to seeing—this was frenzy, multiple walkers converging on a single target in a feeding frenzy.
"Stupid bastard ran straight into a herd. Panic'll get you killed faster than anything else in these woods."
"Jesus," Jake whispered, staring at his former teammate's mangled corpse. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I just... I just wanted them to stop him."
Daryl studied the scene with tracker's eyes, reading the story written in blood and disturbed earth. Shane had fled Jake's walker guardians only to run headlong into a larger group, probably drawn by his gunfire and panicked movements.
"Wasn't your fault," Daryl said finally. "Man made his choice when he tried to murder you. Rest was just consequences."
In the distance, they could hear the approach of engines—Rick and the others, drawn by the gunshots and probably fearing the worst. Daryl made a quick decision.
"We tell 'em Shane got cornered by walkers while scouting. Tried to fight his way out, didn't make it. Truth, far as it goes."
Jake nodded gratefully. The full truth would raise too many questions, create too many problems for a group that was barely holding together as it was.
They heard Carl's voice calling through the trees—young, worried, searching for the man who'd been like a second father to him. In the original timeline, Carl would have been forced to shoot Shane himself, would have carried that burden for the rest of his childhood.
At least that tragedy had been prevented.
As Rick crashed through the underbrush with his son close behind, Daryl caught Jake's arm and squeezed once—a gesture of understanding, of shared burden, of family looking after family.
Shane Walsh was dead, and the group would mourn him. But Jake Martinez was alive, and sometimes that was the only victory you could manage in a world gone mad.
up to chapter 44
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
Can't wait for the next chapter of [ In The Walking Dead With 3 Wishes ]?
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them (20+ chapters ahead!). No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1