The first thing I felt was pain. My arm was on fire, and my head was pounding. I try to open my eyes, but when I do I am
assaulted by the sunlight filtering into my room.
I quickly shut my eyes and groan, from the brightness. But knowing I need to get up, I tried again. This time I slowly
opened my eyes and let them get used to the light. When I opened them fully I saw that I was in my bedroom.
I sat up slowly and cringed when pain shot up and down my right arm. I looked down at my arm and saw that it was stitched
and bandaged. 'Someone must have patched me up while I was out.' I thought to myself.
Then everything that happened last night came rushing back to me. The walkers, that man that saved me and then just
darkness. "Ugh, my head." I say as I clutch my head in pain from the rushing memories. But I was torn from my
thoughts when I heard my bedroom door open.
I look up and see my sister, and Jack jumped on my bed after he ran in excited to see me. "You're up." She said with
a smile as she throws me a granola bar. "You should eat something, you lost a lot of blood." "How long was I out?" I
ask her. "About a day, its late afternoon now." She replies as I eat the small piece of food.
"I feel like shit." I say, and this earned a chuckle from my sister. "You look it too." Kayla adds with a grin, and we
both share a laugh. We then entered a peaceful silence, but after a minute or two Kayla broke it. "Almost thought you
were dead at one point." She says out of the blue, and I looked at her shocked. "What?" I ask, and she started to pet
the dog refusing to look at me. "You stopped breathing. We stitched up your arm and banaged it, but after that there
wasn't much we could do. But after we noticed you stopped breathing, we were just ready to give you mercy right then
and there." She seemed to struggle continuing with the story, but did so anyways. "Then that man saved you. Before we
could mercy you, he comes over and started to do CPR. I thought he was stupid as hell, if you had turned you could have
ripped his face off. We tried to stop him, but right as we went to pull him away you started to breath again." She
finished finally bringing herself to look me in the eyes.
"He saved... me?" I ask skeptically, and she nodded. "Where is he? I owe him a thanks." I say as I go to stand, but
stumble as I reach my feet. Thankfully I steady myself against the dresser, and Kayla stands to help me but I wave her
off. "Are you sure? You need to rest-" She tries to say but I cut her off.
"I'm sure. I would have died if not for him." I say as I face her, she seems reluctant but answers me. "Mom and Dad have
him outside, trying to decide what to do with him." "Seriously?!" I ask shocked. "You'd think they'd be thankful to the
man that saved me." I then turn from her and head into the living room, Kayla and Jack folloing behind me.
"They said he might be dangerous." She says trying to stop me from going outside. And thats when the realization hit me.
"You don't trust him either." I say to her. "Ashley we don't know anything about him. For all we know he's like those
bandits out there. And the second we let him go, he and his friends will come back and kill us." She argues, looking at
the floor thinking this is over.
She was right, there are always risks when trusting a stranger. You turn your back on them, and they are sure to try
something. But I wasn't ready to stop trusting people. This man was the first person we had seen in about a month, and
my family is already acting like he might as well be one of the walkers. When I tried to save him he could have just
left me for dead, but he didn't. And even more he saved me, when my own family was ready to mercy me.
"Please Kayla, let me do this. You guys say I trust too easily and maybe I do. But if I don't at least thank him for
saving me I won't forgive myself. You guys can do what you want with him, but just let me do this." I plead with her
and she looks out the door before nodding at me. "Just be careful, one of these days you're gonna end up trusting the
wrong person. And when that happens, I don't wanna be around when..." She trails off and I walk by her and open the door.
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing Kayla." I say as I walk out the front door with Kayla and Jack following behind me.
The first thing that greets my eyes is my parents standing beside the tool shed, and in front of them stood that man.
Carver I think, and his hands were bound behind his back and tied to one of the metal rings on the shed that we tie
the horses or cows to sometimes. I walk down the steps and over to them. Upon closer inspection I see that my dad has his
rifletrained on him, but surprisingly the man seems unfazed. It was then that my dad heard me and looks over to see me and
Kayla outside.
"Girls get back inside." He says curtly, but I don't listen and walk to the other side of them. "I don't think so, we
agreed we would all decide on what we do with strangers." I tell him and motion to his rifle. "Now put the gun down. No
sense in killing him, we need the bullets and we can't risk the sound." My dad looks as if he is gonna refuse, but then he
listens and lowers the gun. Back when we met the first bunch of people we decided we would vote on what we would do with
them.
"Well I can already see who the leader of this little family is." The man jokingly says, and my dad glares at him. "Shut
your mouth." He says and the man just shrugs. He then looks over at me and smiles. "Good to see your still alive little
lady. Hows that arm treating ya?" He asks looking at my bandaged arm. I subconsciously grab it remembering last night.
"Its fine, I've had worse trust me. And I wanted to thank you for saving me." I say to him and he nods. "You're welcome
sweetie, couldn't let you die without returning the favor. Hell if you hadn't of found me when you did. I would have
been lurker food."
I smile at him and start to think to myself. 'This is about the first decent person we've seen in a while.' I don't see
why the rest of my family is so weary of people, we can't always be afraid of strangers. If we were to be separated, we'd
have to rely on the honesty of others. I was shaken from my thoughts by Kayla.
"Lurkers? Is that what you call them?" She asks and the man just shrugs. "Seemed to suit them at the time, they just lurk
around like a stalker." He then looks up at us and continues. "What do ya'll call them?" Kayla went to answer him, but the
words juts flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. "Walkers." I say to him. "Walkers? Thats pretty smart." He says
but my dad quickly interrupts him. "Why don't we hold off on all the niceties?"
"Your dad's right girls, for all we know he could be dangerous." My mom says glaring at the man. "I'll tell ya'll what you
wanna know just name it." Carver says, and my dad ponders this for a moment. "Where are you from?" My dad asks and the man
answers. "Got a big group not far from here. Me and my people are holed up in an abandoned hardware store." My dad seems
skeeptical but the man continues. "We were running low on medicine, so I took a group of people out to scavenge. We got
split up by a small herd of lurkers, told my people to go ahead and head back and I'd meet them there."
He paused for a moment, as if thinking if he should tell us more or leave it at that. But then he continues. "That was
four days ago. My people probably think I'm dead or worse. If ya'll would just help me out, I'd be much obliged."
My dad is thinking this over and he finally comes to a conclusion. "What do you need?" He asks still wary of the man.
"Set of wheels, or maybe of them horses. Just something thats gonna get me back to my people." Before he can continue
Kayla jumps in at the mention of Foxx and Mac. "No way are you getting one of my horses. You have no idea the hell I
went through to get them here." My dad just shakes his head. "Not sure we risk the car or the horses." "You can't be
seriously be considering letting this man go?! He could be lying, and be one of those bandits from before." My mom yells
at him.
"If there was more mom, I think we'd have seen them by now. And you heard him, no one travels alone by choice anymore."
Kayla intervenes, and I also voice my opinion. "We can't let him go without a few supplies, but why not him stay a few
days. To rest up before we throw him out."
"There's a sensible idea. I'd listen to your girl if I was ya'll." Carver starts to say but my dad cuts him off. "Shut
up." "He's lying, we can't risk him going back to his group and telling them where we are." My mom argues, but Kayla was
starting to get fed up. "But killing him?! Is that really the answer?" Kayla questions while crossing her arms over her
chest.
My dad lets out a sigh and turns to face us. "Kayla you don't think we should kill him. We know where your mom stands
on the subject." He then looks at me. "Your the swing vote here Ash. Whats it gonna be?" He asks and I look down at the
man in thought
"We have to let him stay for a little while and then let him go." I state looking up at my dad. He let out a breath of
pent up air then nodded. "We can't!" My mom says looking panicked. "Look at him mom, he's tied up and isn't even armed.
We can't just kill him. This isn't in self defense." I say and Kayla nods at me. "She's right, I mean yeah some people
are bad apples. But we aren't." She says and she pulls her knife from her sheath, preparing to cut the man's binds.
"But last time-" My mom tries to continue but I stop her. "Mom that was a long time ago! If we kill this man, we are
giving up a part of ourselves that we can NEVER get back." I say and look down at the ground. I then look back up at
the man. "I'm not ready to let that go." The man the smiles at me and I can't help but return it. My dad turns to Kayla.
"Cut him free." He says and Kayla complies.
Once the man was free from his binds, my dad comes to stand in front of him. "Listen you can stay for two days, but thats
it. And we'll give you a few supplies to make it back to your people with. But you came THIS close to death today, and if
you tell anybody where we are or hurt anyone here... You'll wish you had died today." My dad finishes and the man nods.
I turn to Kayla and share a smile with her. I guess she knew what I would pick before I even did.
"You can sleep in the cops old house, for now. Ashley you're in charge of him till he's gone alright? Now show him where
he'll be staying." My dad says to me and I nod. I then walk over to the man and pull his arm to follow me.