Rick left Corey with Hershel and his daughter, as the elderly man wanted to take a look on Erin's cheek – the blow which she received from Daryl left a significant, black and blue bruise which will probably stay for quite a few days. Beside that and a bandage on her neck she seemed healthy, maybe a little too thin but none of them got enough food either. Rick wanted to tell everyone about their agreement, but before that he thought that talking to Daryl would be a good idea. The man still seemed wary at best about their new teammate, and Rick learned that sometimes it's worth trusting someone gut. So after he and Daryl left he simply asked.
- So, what do you think? – Rick said. Daryk stopped, looked over his shoulder at Hershel checking Corey's bandage and making her swallow some antibiotics, which she did what a grimace, like a child swallowing a bitter syrup.
- She's going to be trouble – he just said, shouldering his crossbow.
- Anything to prove your feeling? – inquired Rick. He wanted to trust a man who saved the group more than a few times, but he himself asked Erin to join them, and it wouldn't look well if he was the one who starts showing distrust.
- Not really – Daryl scratched his cheek – Just wondering how the hell did she get here, all alone and with no decent weapon. How much ammo did she have on her?
- A few rounds and one extra magazine .
- Food? Water? – Daryl continued and Rick suddenly realizing that his friend was right: there were too few things in her bag that would allow her to survive. He sighed –maybe the decision was too rash and not well well-thought-out? But he didn't feel like proposing her to stay, only to kick a living soul out of the camp an hour later, so he looked at Daryl and said.
- Watch her for a few days, okay?
- What? – Daryl didn't know if he should laugh in Rick's face or punch him – I don't wanna' have anything to do with this redhead drip.
- All I'm asking is to listen to what she has to say and figure out if it makes any sense at all, and if not, we'll have make a decision what to do with her. She sneaked up on us rather easily… - Rick paused, and this short moment of silence put in the picture more than he could wish.
- Fine, but I told you this would be another Randall case – he said – You have to stop treating people like stray puppies. Dogs tend to be grateful, people don't.
- We'll see what she has to say. Up till now everyone is rather happy to have a new face around. Someone who is alive, someone we can gain and not loose. I don't want to take it away unless I really have to – he whispered, seeing that Maggie had already taken a liking to Erin, and Lori was the first to invite her to sit down and have something to eat. It seemed to get their minds of the loss of Hershel's farm and people left behind: a new face, someone who joined the group. Gain, not loss. Daryl nodded reluctantly, deciding to sit opposite Erin, now getting a good chance to examine their new group member. She was thin-boned, tomboyish type and the impression was deepened by her dark-colored trekking clothes. She was rather good-looking, then exactly pretty – and somewhat lacking womanly curves. It seemed almost impossible that this girl survived all alone in the woods, with no food, water or solid shelter, but there she was. The women chatter with her for quite some time and Daryl grew impatient of waiting for the story she should be serving them right now, and opened his mouth to simply ask the right questions, when Lori helped him out.
- So, how on earth did you manage to get here all by yourself? – the woman asked, and even Carl ceased to be sleepy when there was a chance to hear a thrilling story of a daring escape from the walking dead. Erin smiled faintly and started to play with the empty coffee cup.
- It's not much of a story – she said.
- It has to be, if you really were all alone there – said Daryl, speaking for the first time during supper. Till now he was sitting and tending to the newly made arrows' fletching.
- I was on a survival camp with a couple of friends when everything happened. We wanted to get back to Atlanta, but when the emergency broadcasts stopped we've decided to lay low. There were seven of us at that time.
- What happened to them? – asked Glenn.
- Three weeks ago our camp was attacked, and we got separated – her voice was calm and cool, like a reporter commenting on the weather, but her hands toyed with the cup nervously, betraying her true emotions - I managed to get away with one of my friends and we tried looking for the others for some time, but the tracks ended in a corpse, either eaten or trying to eat us. And then… - she paused, her small hands clutched the metal cup – Thomas got bit, and died because of the fever, though I tried everything to make it go down. He died, or at least I think he was dead, since in the morning… - she paused. Silence fell, not because no one knew what happened next, but because everyone did.
- He got up – T-Dog finished for her, and Erin only nodded.
-And I got scared and ran away.
- And left a walker behind your back – Daryl shook his head in disbelief. Erin gave him a look that could turn ice into water. Still everyone was looking at her with anxiety, so she sighted and continued.
- It's simple to stick a screwdriver in a stranger's eye socket. It's either you die or he dies. But I knew Thomas for six years, I got drunk at his wedding. I just couldn't. I know I should have put him down, but I just could not. Would not maybe.
- We've lost people too – said Carol gently, looking at Daryl with a mild reprove, and a remainder that putting down a walker that used to be a friend was what they've been through too.
- In the beginning I wasn't even sure they are dead, or not.
- First walker I saw was only half of the body, so I'm not sure it could be called a walker – added Rick, remembering the first corpse that snapped at him from the ground – But they're dead. We saw a scan of an infected person in the CDC. This disease, whatever it is, restarts the most primeval parts of the brain, and only those. Once reanimated, all the humanity is lost – he said, and suddenly, after the atmosphere got dense as a pudding again, Erin shook her head and snickered nervously.
- Gosh, that's rather a relief – she said, and everyone stared at her in silent bewilderment. Erin combed her red hair with fingers, and explained, almost getting hiccups from the nervous giggling she tried to control, cut couldn't, as if the tension she lived in for the past weeks just started to wear off.
– I was wondering all the time if I killed sick people, or are they really dead. So, you just ensured my better sleep – she said, ending the sentence with a silenced hiccup. Someone passed her another cup of tea, and they sat for a long moment in silence, interrupted only by rustling of the treetops moved by the cool breeze, and scraping of Daryl's knife against a piece of wood. It was such a strange reaction to knowing that all those people were dead, not ill as everyone would wish, but Erin seemed to be simply glad she had no living soul to weight on her conscience. And when the silence became heavy, Beth asked a simple, straightforward question.
- So what did you do before?
- Before - repeated Erin, as if trying to ensure the understood the girl correctly – I was a bartender at one of the clubs in Senoia – she almost laughed again when she saw people looking at her as if she told them she was the US president. She did seem a bundle of surprises.
- A bartender? So please, explain, how did you end up on survival camp? And almost manage to break Daryl's nose? – inquired Glenn, ignoring the dirty look the aforementioned gave him. Erin was a small woman, and yet Daryl had to knock her out cold to restrain her, so all were quite interested in this aspect of her story too.
- My brother was in the military, and when I got the job he had mixed feeling about me coming back alone in the middle of the night from a bar full of drunk men… So he offered to pay for a self-defense course run by one of his own instructors. I got on so well with people there we started going on survival camps together. This is why I survived, I simply knew how and wasn't alone, at least in the beginning – she well remembered her brother's expression: worried when she had told him about the job, and stern when he forced her to attend the course, and how unexpectedly she felt at home with all those guys in sweaty shirts and girls with penknives in their pockets instead of lipstick. She smiled to memories.
- What happened to your brother? – asked Lori, maybe hoping that Erin might know something that will get them all closer to safety, to some military fort that hasn't been overrun. Tt seems the wasn't the only one to hope for that, yet Erin quickly crushed their hopes.
- I went camping and don't really know what happened to my brother or his family – she said biting her lower lip. Lori seemed to touch a tender string, because Erin had a family, and didn't know what happened: did they escape, are they alive or did they join the walkers? The atmosphere dropped again, so Rick gave a call to get some rest, taking the first shift on watch with Daryl, while Glenn and Maggie volunteered to watch till' morning. Everyone was tired, Carl basically fell asleep on Lori's lap while the group was talking to Erin. The girl herself just rolled up her torn hoodie to make for a pillow, and when Carol came to get her a blanket she was already sleeping soundly – after all she almost gutted a man, got shot from a crossbow and punched in the face on top of all.
To Rick her trustful sleep was a good sign, and he believed her story was true - she spoke directly, without significant pauses which would implicate making anything up. He is – or was at least – a policeman and he could judge when someone wasn't telling the truth. The one and only moment she did hesitate was when she mentioned the incident with the other group, but she might simply be unwilling to speak about some personal, or brutal details – he remembered Randall's story about raping women and he shivered to think that could have happened to her.
Still after the camp became silent he asked Daryl for a talk, asking asked rather frankly if he thought keeping her was a good idea. Daryl thought for a moment, remembering every little gesture she has made during the campfire talk.
- I think so – he admitted reluctantly. He wasn't the Welsh girl biggest fan, but he also thought her story sounded sensible. Plus he didn't plan to take her for her word on survival skills and test them out when next day during a supply run, an idea he shared with Rick. And to his contentment, the policeman agreed to it with a sigh of relief.