I climbed down out of the RV as steam flamed up from the sputtering engine. The yellow station wagon pulled up behind us and Daryl turned his bike around to come back to us. The quiver bounced off my back and my bow clanged against my leg as me and the rest of the group made our way to the front of theh RV.
"I said it." Dale said. "Didn't I say it? A thousand times. Dead in the water."
"Problem, Dale?" Shane asked him, shotgun in his hand.
"Just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of-" Daryl started rumaging through an open trunk of a van. "Okay, that was dumb."
"If you can't find a radiator hose here..."
"There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find." Daryl said.
"I can siphon more fuel from these cars for a start." T-dog said, grabbing a hose and a gas canister.
"Maybe some water." Carol suggested.
"Or food." Dale added.
"Come on, y'all." T-dog called to everybody. "Just look around. Gather what you can." I began going from car to car, throwing flashlights and canned goods into my empty tote bag. I was about to my seventh car and reaching for a can of spaghetti O's when a hand clamped over my mouth and pulled me down under the car. Daryl took off his crossbow and my quiver and bow so we could have more room to fit under the car. I looked in front of me to the other car and saw Rick under it and a couple cars over Lori and Carol were hiding under another car, Lori's hand clamped over Carol's mouth. What the hell was going on? Then, I saw and heard it. A pair of feet dragged across the cement followed by groans and moans. Then another pair showed up and another and another until there were too many feet to count. Daryl curled his body tighter around mine as the walkers neared us, his free arm snaking around my stomach to pull me closer to him. Dozens and dozens of walkers grumbled as they bumped through the cars trying to make their way through the maze of cars. Hours of smelling rotten flesh and death seemed to pass when finally the last pair of feet passed. Daryl slowly loosened his grip on me but still kept me near him. I grabbed my quiver and bow and pushed away from him and dragged myself out from underneath the car with Daryl behind me. A scream sounded back near the RV and we raced off to the direction of the sound.
"There's two walkers are after my baby." Carol cried as she ran towards the woods but Lori pulled her back.
"It's ok, Carol." I reassured. "Rick will bring her back."
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"You sure this is the spot?" Daryl questioned Rick as he looked at a pile of brambles in the river.
"I left her right here." Rick insisted. "I drew the walkers way off in that direction up the creek." He pointed downstream.
"Without a paddle-Seems where we've landed."
"She was gone by the time I got back. I figured she just took off and ran back to the group. I told her go that way and keep the sun on her left shoulder." Daryl walked over to the riverbed and looked up to the dirt at Glen.
"Hey, Short Round, why don't you step off to one side? You're mucking up the trail." Glen looked over at me at Daryl's words as he took a step to the side. I held my hands up in surrender. I had no control over what Daryl said.
"Assuming she knows her left from her right." Shane said.
"Shane, she understood me fine." Rick snapped.
"Kid's tired and scared, man. She had her a close call with two walkers. Got to wonder how much of what your said stuck."
"Got clear prints right here." Daryl said, looking at the forest floor. "She did like you said, headed back to the highway. "Let's spread out, make our way back." Daryl climbed up out of the river with Rick behind him.
"She couldn't have gone far." We followed behind Daryl as he kept close to the ground, keeping his eye on Sophia's trail, crossbow ready in his right hand until he stopped.
"She was doing just fine till right here. All she had to do was keep going. She veered off that way." He pointed to his right.
"Why would she do that?" I mumbled.
"Maybe she saw something that spooked her, made her run off." Shane suggested.
"A walker?" Glen questioned him. Daryl shook his head as he looked closer at the trail.
"I don't see any other footprints." He said. "Just hers.
"So what do we do?" Shane asked. "All of us press on?"
"No, better if you, Glen and Sutton get back up to the highway. People are gonna start panicking. Let them know we're on her trail doing everything we can. But most of all, keep everybody calm."
"I ain't goin' anywhere." I said.
"Sutton, I need you with the others."
"I'm pretty sure these boys can handle the group on their own. Can't you, boys?"
"I'll keep 'em busy scavenging cars." Shane said. "Think up a few other chores. I'll keep 'em occupied. Come on." Glen and Shane past us and headed back to the highway and Rick turned to me.
"You sure you're up for this?" He asked me.
"Boy, I ain't no Tinkerbell. I know how to take of myself. You men always underestimating women. What the hell's wrong with you?" I scoffed as Daryl laughed at my tone and began to follow Sophia's trail.
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"The tracks are gone." Rick sighed after about twenty minutes of following Sophia's tracks.
"No, they're faint, but they ain't gone." Daryl observed the ground. "She came through here."
"How can you tell?I don't see anything but dirt, grass."
"Boy, our mission is to find a little girl not to get tracking lessons. Focus, man!" I scolded Rick. Even though Rick was older than me and was a police officer, he still always took my words to mind. Leaves rustled in front of us and we immediately dropped to the ground. I pulled an arrow from my quiver and strung in my string, ready to shoot. Daryl and I looked to Rick and he pointed off into the distance and we kept low as we followed after Rick. We saw a walker with its back to us and Rick looked to Daryl. Daryl aimed his crossbow at the walker but looked at Rick and shook his head when he couldn't get a clear shot. Rick began to walk forward again with a new plan in mind but I stopped him. I stepped up onto a tree stump and raised my bow and arrow, using my thumb to line up my arrow with the walker's head. I slowly pulled the bowstring back and once I was sure the shot was clear and I let go of the arrow and it whistled through the air to the walker's head. I looked down at Rick.
"And we're back again to men underestimating women." I growled at him. I hopped off the stump and we walked to the walker. I stepped on the walker's back and pulled the arrow out of its head, wiping it on the grass to get the blood off of it before sticking it back into my quiver.
"Sophia!" Daryl called through the woods but there was no answer. Rick pulled out a pair of gloves from his pocket and slid his hands into them before crouching beside the walker and opening its mouth. "What are you looking for?"
"Skin under the fingernails." Rick said. "It fed recently." Rick stuck his fingers into its mouth and pulled out a chunk of flesh. "There's flesh caught in its teeth."
"Yeah, what kind of flesh?"
"Only one way to know for sure." Rick pulled out his knife and held it above the walker's stomach, ready to cut it open.
"Are you serious?" I questioned.
"We have to know for certain, Sutton."
"Here, I'll do it." Daryl said, pulling out his knife. "How many kills you skin and gut in your life? Anyway, mine is sharper."
"Oh, my god." I groaned, a sick feeling stirring in my gut.
"You're welcome to turn away." I groaned and turned my back to them as I heard the tearing and rendering of the walker's flesh. My stomach jolted wanting to throw up the emptiness. "Now comes the bad part."
"Like that wasn't the bad part already." The smell became horrible when they cut open the stomach. It was a mixture of spoiled food, sewage and...death.
"This gross bastard had himself a woodchuck for lunch."
"At least we know." Rick said.
"At least we know." Daryl and Rick gathered up their gear and we continued on the trail.
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We eventually made our way out of the woods to the highway and Carol was there to greet us. Her face fell and tears clouded her eyes when she saw that it was just the three of us.
"You didn't find her?" She cried.
"Her trail went cold." Rick explained. "We'll pick it up again at first light."
"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own to spend the night alone in the woods."
"Out in the dark's no good." Daryl said. "We'd just be tripping over ourselves. More people get lost."
"But she's 12. She can't be out there on her own. You didn't find anything."
"I know this is hard." I said. "But I'm asking you not to panic. We know she was out there."
"And we tracked her for a while." Daryl added.
"We have to make this an organized effort." Rick said. "Daryl knows the woods better than anybody. I've asked him to oversee this." Carol looked away from Rick and glanced down at Daryl's hands and gasped.
"Is that blood?" She questioned him and started to hyperventilate.
"We took down a walker." I said.
"A walker? Oh my god."
"There was no sign it was ever anywhere near Sophia."
"How can you know that?" Andrea asked. Rick, Daryl and I all glanced at each other.
"We cut the son of a bitch open, made sure." Daryl said. Carol sighed and sat down on a guard rail.
"Oh god." She moaned before looking up at Rick. "How could you just leave her out there to begin with? How could you just leave her?"
"Those two walkers were on us." Rick said. "I had to draw them off. It was her best chance."
"Sounds like he didn't have a choice, Carol." Shane said, standing up for his best friend.
"How was she supposed to find her way back on her own?" Carol questioned him as she began to sob. "She's just a child. She's just a child."
"It was my only option." Rick insisted as he crouched down beside her. "The only choice I could make."
"I'm sure nobody doubts that." Shane said.
"My little girl got left in the woods." Carol cried. Rick walked off unable to bare the guilt Carol was bringing down on him.
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The next morning, Rick gathered us up and laid out an arsenal on the hood of the car, ready to form a search party for Sophia.
"Everybody takes a weapon." Rick said.
"These aren't the kind of weapons we need." Andrea protested angrily. "What about the guns?"
"We've been over that." Shane reminded her. "Daryl, Sutton, Rick and I are carrying. We can't have people popping off rounds every time a tree rustles."
"It's not the trees I'm worried about."
"Say somebody fires at the wrong moment, a herd happens to be passing by. See, then it's game over for all of us. So you need to get over it." Andrea glared at Shane as Daryl began to explain the grid of the map.
"The idea is to take the creek up about five miles, turn around and come back down the other side." He said. "Chances are she'll be by the creek. It's her only landmark."
"Stay quiet and stay sharp." Rick reminded everybody. "Keep space between you but always stay within sight of each other."
"Everybody assemble your packs." I grabbed a bookbag from the RV and began to load up on water. Daryl came over to me and handed me a bag of trail mix.
"I'm fine." I muttered as I tossed a round of bullets into the bookbag too and hanging another clip to my belt. Daryl kept quiet and continued to hold the bag out to me, waiting for me to take it from him. I laughed. "Daryl Dixon. Being nice to someone. Thought the day would never come." I took the bag from him and put it in my bookbag and zipped it up. Daryl and I took the lead with the others closely behind us. We headed to the creek like Daryl said we would start when we came across a campsite. Rick signaled everyone to stop and be quiet.
"She could be in there."
"Could be a whole bunch of things in there." Daryl said. We slowly made our way to the site. Daryl had his crossbow up, ready to fire. I unbuckled my bow from my belt and gripped it in my left hand, my right hand ready to grab an arrow from my quiver at a second's notice. We stopped at the edge of the campsite and Daryl put his crossbow down and pulled out his knife. He looked at me and I pulled an arrow and nicked it in the bow, raising it slightly and pulling a little on the string. I nodded to him, letting him know I had his back as he made his way to the tent. Daryl tried to look inside without lifting the flap but couldn't see anything.
"Carol." Rick called to Carol in a hushed whisper and she ran over to us. "Call out softly. If she's in there, yours is the first voice she should hear."
"Sophia, sweetie," Carol called out. "Are you in there?" Daryl was position at the entrance of the tent, knife in hand ready to attack if needed. "Sophia, it's Mommy. Sophia. We're all here, baby. It's Mommy." Daryl began to raise the flap of the tent and I raised my bow higher and pulled the string tighter. He climbed inside the tent as Rick and Shane made their way to it. They gagged as they approached it, coughing at the smell of rotting flesh. "Daryl? Daryl?" Daryl came back out.
"It ain't her." He announced.
"What's in there?" Andrea asked.
"Some guy. Did what Jenner said. Opted out. Ain't that what he called it?" Church bells began to ring in the distant and we all looked at each other in shock. Rick located the direction of the sound and took off with us behind him. He stopped and looked around, losing his sense of direction.
"What direction?" Shane asked.
"I think that way." Rick said. "I'm pretty sure."
"Damn, it's hard to tell out here."
"If we heard them, maybe Sophia did too." Carol said.
"Someone's ringing those bells, maybe calling others." I said.
"Or signaling they found her." Andrea suggested.
"She could be ringing them herself." Rick added. "Come on." We raced off into the woods again and came across a meadow with a big white church in the middle of it.
"That can't be it." Shane said. "Got no steeple, no bells." Rick ignored him and continued his path to the church. "Rick." We climbed the steps to the closed red doors and Rick, Daryl, Shane and I got into formation, ready to take out whatever was inside. Rick pushed opened the door and inside three walkers were spread out, sitting down. They all turned to us and snarled before getting up and making their way to us. Rick took the one on the left, Shane got the one at the front and Daryl took care of the one to the far right. The bells began to ring again and we all rushed outside to the left of the church and looked up to see a speaker. Glen opened the box and pulled the spark plug and the ring instantly stopped.
"I'm gonna go back in for a bit." Carol said in a disappointed tone. The rest of us gathered up by a tree while Rick and Shane went off to talk things through. Shane came back to us with Rick bringing up the rear.
"Y'all gonna follow the creek bed back, okay?" Shane ordered. "Daryl, you're in charge." I looked at him a disapproving look.
"Excuse me?" I said.
"He doesn't mean that." Rick said. "Sutton, you're in charge." I gave him a chesire cat smile.
"I feel loved." Shane looked at Rick for an explanation.
"You can't underestimate a woman." Rick whispered to him.
"That boy learns quickly." I said, buckling my bow back to my belt. Shane shook his head disapprovingly but continued with orders.
"Me and Rick, we're just gonna hang back, search this area another hour or so just to be thorough."
"You're splitting us up." Daryl said. "You sure?"
"Yeah, we'll catch up to you."
"I want to stay too." Carl said. "I'm her friend." Rick and Shane exchanged looks before looking at Lori to make the final decision.
"Just be careful, okay?" Lori said, giving her son a hug.
"I will."
"When did you start growing up?" Rick and Lori exchanged their goodbyes as Carol came out to join us.
"Here, take this." Rick pulled his gun from his holster and handed it to Lori. "Remember how to use it?"
"I'm not taking your gun and leaving you unarmed." Lori insisted.
"Here, got a spare." Daryl said, handing a small revolver to her. "Take it." Lori reluctantly took it from him and I began to lead the group back to the highway.
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Daryl and I were in the lead with Carol and Lori bringing up the rear. It was silent among us except for the crunching of the leaves below our feet and the birds chirping above our heads. I looked over at Daryl a few times to catch him looking away from me after running his eyes along my body. I always smiled and continued walking. A gunshot sounded in the distant behind us and we stopped to look in the direction, expecting more gunshots to be heard but none came. After a few moments of listening, I was certain no more gunshots would come.
"Come on, let's keep moving. There's only so many hours of daylight left." I said.
"Shouldn't we go back?" Lori questioned me. "What if they're in trouble?"
"It was one gunshot, Lori, I'm sure they're fine. Now let's go." I turned and began to walk again, Lori reluctantly following us. We walked for another ten minutes when Andrea broke the silence.
"You still worrying about it?" Andrea asked and I revolved around to see Lori staring through the trees again.
"It was a gunshot." Lori said.
"Yes." I agreed. "We all heard it. We ain't stupid like you."
"Sutton." Daryl whispered my name beside me and I almost shivered at the way my name fell off his tongue.
"Why one? Why just one gunshot?" Lori asked.
"Maybe they took down a walker."
"Please don't patronize me. You know Rick wouldn't risk a gunshot to put down one walker. Or Shane. They'd do it quietly."
"Shouldn't they have caught up with us by now?" Carol murmurmed the question. Daryl and I exchanged looks.
"There's nothing we can do about it anyway." Daryl said. "Can't run around these woods chasing echoes."
"So what do we do?" Lori asked.
"Same as we've been." I said. "Beat the bush for Sophia, work our way back to the highway."
"I'm sure they'll hook up with us back at the RV." Andrea said before turning to Carol. "I'm sorry for what you're going through. I know how you feel."
"I suppose you do." Carol said, giving Andrea a weak smile. "Thank you. The though of her out here by herself...it's the not knowing that's killing me. I just keep hoping and praying she doesn't wind up like Amy." Andrea looked at Carol in disbelief that she said that about her sister. Carol gasped when she realized what she said. "Oh god. That's the worst thing I ever said."
"Damn straight." I agreed.
"Sutton." Daryl hushed me. Andrea shook her head to clear the thoughts of her sister away.
"We're all hoping and praying with you, for what it's worth."
"I'll tell you what it's worth-not a damn thing. It's a waste of time all this hoping and praying."
"Daryl!" It was my turn to hush him but he continued.
"'Cause we're gonna locate that little girl, she's gonna be just fine. Am I the only one zen around here?"
"Daryl!" He scoffed and took lead again.
"Good lord." We all followed behind him.
"How much further?" Lori asked Daryl.
"Not far. Maybe a hundred yards. As the crow flies."
"Too bad we're not crows." Andrea muttered. My foot caught in a root and I began to fall but Daryl's arm was there to catch me and pull me up before I hit the ground.
"Watch where you're walking."
"Well, thanks for helping me." I snapped at him in the same condescending tone that he gave me. We walked a few steps before he spoke again.
"You're welcome." Andrea screamed about ten yards to our right and we all turned and ran toward her. From the distant, as I reached behind me to grab an arrow from the quiver, a walker was hovering over Andrea but she managed to keep it away from her with her feet planted on its chest. Thudding noises sounded a tan and black thoroughbred with a woman on its back and a baseball bat in her hand came out of the trees and slammed the bat into the walker's head like it was a baseball and pulled her horse to a stop.
"Lori!" The chick called out. "Lori Grimes!"
"I'm Lori." Lori said stepping up to the horse.
"Rick sent me. You've got to come now."
"What?"
"There's been an accident. Carl's been shot. He's still alive but you've got to come now." Lori just stood there looking at the girl not knowing what to do. "Rick needs you. Just come." Lori began to take off her backpack and start to walk to the horse but Daryl stopped her.
"Whoa whoa whoa." He protested. "We don't know this girl. You can't get on that horse." Lori ignored him and climbed onto the horse behind the chick.
"Rick said that you had others on the highway, that big traffic snarl? Backtrack to Fairburn Road. Two miles down is our farm. You'll see the mailboc. The name is Greene. Hyah!" The chick turned the horse around and galloped off into the sunset. The walker wheezed as it sat up.
"Shut up." Daryl raised his crossbow and fired an arrow into the walker's head.
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"Shot?" Dale exclaimed when we got back to the highway and told him what happened. "What do you mean shot?"
"I don't know, Dale." Glen said. "I wasn't there. "All I know that this chick rode out of nowhere like Zorro on a horse and took Lori." Dale turned to Daryl.
"You let her?"
"Climb down out of my asshole, man." Daryl snapped. "Rick sent. She knew Lori's name and Carl's." Dale looked over at Andrea.
"I heard screams. Was that you?" Andrea ignored him and made her way to the RV.
"She got attack by a walker." I explained. "It was a close call."
"Andrea, are you all right?" Andrea turned and glared at Dale before heading into the RV, slamming the door behind her.
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"I won't do it." Carol protested when we told her that we should start heading to the farm the Rick and Lori went to. "We can't just leave."
"Carol, the group is split. We're scattered and weak." Dale tried to reason with her.
"What if she comes back and we're not here? It could happen."
"If Sophia found her way back and we were gone, that would be awful." Andrea said.
"Ok, we got to plan for this." Daryl stated. "I say tomorrow morning is soon enough to pull up stakes. Give us a chance to rig a big sign, leave her some supplies. I'll hold here tonight, stay with the RV."
"If the RV is staying, I am too." Dale said.
"If Dale is staying then so am I." I said. Ever since I joined the group, Dale has been a father figure to me. Always there for me, always watching out for me though he doesn't do it as often lately since he now has Andrea to look after, I still look up to him. It would feel wrong just to leave him.
"Thank you." Carol whispered. "Thank you three."
"I'm in too." Andrea jumped in.
"Well, if you're all staying then I'm-" Glen tried to speak but Dale cut him off.
"Not you, Glen. You're going." Dale ordered. "Take Carol's Cherokee."
"Me? Why is it always me?"
"You have to find this farm, reconnect with out people and see what's going on but most important, you have to get T-Dog there. This is not an option. That cut has gone from bad to worse. He has a very serious blood infection. Get him to that farm. See if they have any antibiotics." Daryl looked around for his bike and walked over to it and pulled out a bag of prescriptions from his bag. He walked back to us and set the prescriptions on the hood of the cherokee and began to dig through them.
"Why'd you wait till now to say anything?" Daryl demanded the rhetorical question. "Got my brother's stash. Crystal, X. Don't need that. Got some kick ass painkillers." He tossed a bottle to Glen. "Oxycycline." He tossed another bottle to Dale. "Not the generic stuff neither. It's first class. Merle got the clap on occasion."