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There was no relief from the blazing Georgia summer. The sun was set directly in front of Sadie Wagner as she quietly came around the corner of the pharmacy. Sweat dripped into her eyes, but she didn't falter. The heart of Barbourville was populated by the dead cannibals she used to know personally. By now, though, their numbers dwindled.
Sadie came back once a week to this place, scrounging for anything that might prove beneficial. Supplies were quickly becoming scarce. The grocery store was looted long ago and canned goods were nowhere to be found. Clean water was a luxury. Luckily, she and Olivia found a creek bed in the woods some five miles away.
Olivia. The little girl proved more valuable than Sadie first realized. Shut away in one of the houses Sadie scavenged the previous Winter, Olivia was on death's door. Her parents had left her holed up in the basement while they went searching for supplies and never came back. In that basement for three months, Olivia survived by eating half a can of tuna and four saltine crackers a day until she ran out, and until Sadie found her malnourished and dehydrated.
Sadie was worried that she'd frighten Olivia when she first found her. A thick and prominent scar lined down the right side of Sadie's face, from her brow to her chin, passing over her eye. Olivia had never asked about it and Sadie was glad. Some things were better left unsaid.
Since Sadie had known her, Olivia had not said a single word, let alone mutter a sound. She was mute either by choice or design. The girl didn't call for help or communicate by conventional standards. For weeks, she wrote in a notepad any response she had for Sadie until it grew tiresome and too tedious for either of them.
In the moments when the pair were too anxious or scared to sleep, they came up with their own sign language.
Having Oliva with her was difficult and easy at the same time. Sadie didn't have to feign politeness or courtesy. She didn't have to make small talk with an almost complete stranger. Hell, she barely knew anything about the kid. But there was a companionship that they developed. They shared one basic commonality: they had to survive.
To do that, they needed to make sacrifices. Sadie's stomach growled as she rested against the wall, allowing Olivia some time to catch up with her current position. Sadie hadn't eaten in over a day. It wasn't anything beyond normal. She would go without food on occasion, as long as Olivia had something to eat. A 12 year old wouldn't fare as well without food as a 26 year old.
Sadie took a step out from behind the pharmacy only to quickly retreat back against its wall. Olivia stood with her back to Sadie but could sense the anxiety spread.
Sadie began counting the dead shuffling about not 50 yards ahead of her. One...two...three...four. She clicked her tongue in concurrence with her count. Olivia heard this and responded with two clicks of her own.
Six walkers: four in front and two behind. Olivia could take the two easily. "You want them while I take these guys?" Sadie whispered, glancing back at the girl. A curt nod was all the response Olivia gave before silently moving off in the direction of the two.
There were no guns. Those were locked away, safely out of the reach of Sadie. She was given permission to use knives and the finely tuned tomahawks her stepfather collected back in Oklahoma. Two of them hung on her belt with a knife tucked away in her right shoe. She and Olivia both carried aluminum baseball bats.
Sadie approached the first Creep, shuffling between a row of cars. He looked in her direction at the last second before his head was knocked off, his body collapsing to the ground. Sadie readied the bat again, aiming to take off the next head of a Creep she came across. The gurgle of its voice sounded to her right. With the swoosh of her bat, he was down.
The two other Creeps were alerted to her presence. They began their unsteady walk toward her. Not risking the pair getting too close, Sadie dropped her bat and snatched both tomahawks from her belt. In quick succession, she threw both toward them, and they simultaneously fell to the ground.
She retrieved her tomahawks and put them back on her belt before running toward Olivia. Sadie would never know if Olivia was overrun by the Creeps. She'd die before a sound escaped her lips.
Sure enough, Olivia was cleaning off her knife before placing it back in her shoe. Sadie knew her fair share of people who attempted to kill the Creeps, but ended up getting killed in the process. Olivia was an invaluable, yet lethal, partner.
Inside the pharmacy, a small display of candy was still intact. "No Kit-Kats. You want some Twix?" Olivia looked at her with disgust on her face. "Yeah...they're probably no good at this point. I mean, what is? Even medicine has an expiration date."
Olivia unzipped her backpack, stuffing whatever she could find in it.
"Woah, Liv. Do you even know what half that stuff does?" Sadie approached her and took the bottle she was holding out of her hand. "These are sleep aids. Ain't no use in us gettin' sleep aids when it'll just bring our guard down. We'd be too drowsy to react properly." Olivia sighed and defiantly dropped the pill bottles on the floor. "Hey now, I don't make the rules."
Olivia made a sign Sadie knew to mean "bullshit".
Sadie smiled as she walked around the corner. "Oh, my God." Olivia rushed to her side. "An entire aisle dedicated to tampons. That's trading power right there." Sadie turned to face Olivia. "If you ever see tampons, toilet paper, or cigarettes...you're in the money. Take 'em and run." Olivia rolled her eyes as she began stuffing her backpack with the boxes Sadie handed her.
A large gunshot rang throughout the parking lot. Then another and another. Sadie and Olivia didn't move. They glanced out the tinted storefront windows. Sadie's heart began to race-one Creep walked by, followed by nearly a dozen others.
Another shot. And another. Olivia looked up at Sadie. "That's a .357...He doesn't have one of those." Sadie looked around and spotted an exit to the rear of the building. "C'mon. We can sneak out this way."
They rounded the same corner as before and glanced to the parking lot. Sadie clicked her tongue 10 times and Olivia nodded as they watched the swarm of Creeps close in on a group of three.
"You recognize them?"
Olivia shook her head.
"Same here." Olivia tightened her grip on her baseball bat, ready to charge as soon as Sadie gave the command. Sadie had different intentions. "What-you wanna go runnin' off to battle? You don't know those guys. Those gunshots probably got half the town comin' after them right now."
Olivia glared at her, and Sadie realized that the girl was gonna do whatever she wanted anyway. "If you get me killed, I swear to God I'm comin' after you first. We help 'em out, we leave. No lingering-you got me?" Olivia nodded and made her way through the parking lot, leading the two. Sadie dropped her baseball bat and grabbed her tomahawks.
The group of men had climbed on top of a truck, the youngest still a teenager. They kicked and punched at the Creeps and didn't take notice of Olivia and Sadie until the first Creep went down. Olivia had smashed it's head clean through with a bat.
Two more went down with nothing holding their heads intact: a blade protruded from either of their brittle skulls.
The girls were an easy distraction. They hacked and beat and killed any of the Creeps that dared to get close enough to them. One of the men jumped down from the truck and snatched his crossbow. He loaded it with an arrow and shot at a Creep approaching him.
The man with the gun took out the last of the Creeps, smashing his .357 into it's head.
"What in the hell is wrong with you people?" Sadie seethed. "Every damn Creep in this town is gonna come now that you've been so trigger happy."
"There were at least a dozen of them on our tail. We had to take them out," The gunslinger retorted.
Sadie grabbed Olivia by the arm and tugged her away from the men. They hurried through the pile of creeps, Sadie grabbing her tomahawks as they went.
"Hey. Hey!" the gunslinger shouted. He walked after them. "We're looking for shelter. Can you help us out?"
"We already did," Sadie called back. "You'd be smart to leave. This ain't your turf."
"The hell it isn't!" The other man shouted. "You can't claim this place!"
"Keep walking, Liv," she whispered. "Don't turn around. Just keep walking." Sadie pushed Olivia in front of her and turned around to face the men.
"Look, we don't mean any harm," Gunslinger raised his hands, not holding his weapon. He even went as far as to drop the .357 on the ground in front of him. "We just need some help."
Sadie rested both hands on her tomahawks. She looked between the three of them. The sun was slowly starting to set. In an hour, they would be shrouded in darkness, but there'd be no relief. The heat would dissipate only slightly, replaced by a humid and thick air that was native to the south this time of year. Crickets would drown out the cicadas.
Barbourville, when there were more people and less Creeps, became a breeding ground for the latter at night. It wasn't safe.
Sadie studied the man in front of her, knowing that the rules didn't allow for new people. Taking Olivia in was a stretch, but still...this man pleaded for help, even if the others didn't much care. She could read him-read his body language. Sadie stepped closer, her grip on the tomahawks unyielding.
"Where are you from?"
"We live about two hours from here. We were driving, looking for the gun store, but our vehicle died. We were hoping to take another one."
"All these vehicles have been siphoned. No gas in the lot of them."
"I guess we attracted a whole slew of Walkers."
"Walkers?" Sadie questioned. "That what you call 'em?"
"More or less. We can talk about that later-"
"Sadie?" Her name cut through the thick air. The man with the crossbow stepped forward.
He lowered his weapon which was trained on her ever since she turned around. Her heart was pounding and her hands shaking. The familiarity of this man plagued her.
"Sadie Wagner?" She pulled one tomahawk from her belt, holding it at the ready.
The realization hit her hard. She knew this face. She knew this man. The questions jumbled together in her mind: all of the hows and whys.
Her first gut reaction was to run away from anything familiar. It's what she should have done before. But she couldn't. She couldn't even move or breathe.
"Daryl?"
He stepped forward, past Gunslinger. "What the hell are you doing here?"
It wasn't the warm welcome she was expecting.