Here it is for you, the second chapter! ( : Enjoy! & Please review, favorite, follow, and most importantly... Read!


May stood in line quietly as everyone chattered around her. They scooped spoonfuls of slimy beans and gooey vegetables onto their plates like they were the chefs of a gourmet meal. She figured she couldn't perceive the scene as it was—she'd been eating well since she'd gotten to her uncle's house.

May felt warm inside when she watched Judith reach for her father as she sat in his arms. She cooed and he played along, bouncing her on the top of his knees. She was still slightly ticked by their earlier encounter, but she was mesmerized by the preservation of ordinary humanity the father and daughter seemed to embody.

A hip hit May's and she was shaken out of her daze. She looked at the culprit and met Carol's eyes. "Have a crush?"

May snorted, emptying a glob of beans from the communal spoon back into the pot. "Judith's funny, you know… She could grow up an' never know any this shit happened."

"I don't know about that," Carol laughed lightly. "Her generation is going to be the one picking up the pieces."

May's lips curled upwards with a small hope and she moved on to the pile of mushy celery in the subsequent bowl. "Y'all're actin' like you're eatin' like kings tonight."

When May had her bowl filled meagerly, she turned and looked for the best place to sit and eat. She would have first thought of sitting with Carol, but she had seen her sitting with Daryl earlier and May figured Daryl wouldn't want some stranger interrupting their meal with an uncomfortable presence. So May looked to the priest, Gabriel, who appeared to be slightly disturbed and severely tormented with his back to the altar. When May crouched her knees cracked, drawing Father Gabriel's attention.

"Hello May," he welcomed her warmly.

"Father," she nodded, acknowledging him with the respect a priest deserved, but that which the rest of the group lacked.

"You know, you are the only one who is kind to me of your entire group," he commented. "They have all lost their way, besides you."

May smiled. "E'eryone is so afraid that they've lost their faith in the Lord, an' I could'a too. He gives us the strength to face the world we do today, but it's hard to remember that nowadays."

"For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord," Gabriel quoted the verse from Psalms. His voice peaked with hope like the sun looks out from behind dark clouds. His voice promised safety and prosperity, and May felt the Lord was close to her—closer than He had been in a long time.

"Thank you," she said weakly, her voice broken by the revivification of her desire to live. Her eyes were wet and glinting with tears like glass reflecting rain.

The sound of the feast seemed to overwhelm their conversation, so they ate quietly with their minds to themselves until Abraham stood up with a dripping glass of wine in his hand. In the candlelight and beneath the burgundy beams of the church, Abraham looked like a Medieval figure hovering above the faint orange lights. The wine seemed as though blood dripping from a crystal goblet.

"I'd like to propose a toast!" He announced, and with that the room grew silent. "I look around this room and I see survivors. Each and e'ery one of you has earned that title. T' the survivors!" He raised the chalice, and so did everyone else in the room. They cheered buoyantly, like they had won their lives when really they had just won a single day.

"Is that all you want'a be?" Abraham asked, sending the room into a sound silence again. "Wake up in the mornin', fight undead pricks, forage for food, go t' sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse, an' repeat? 'Cause you can do that. I mean you got the strength, you got the skill… Thing is, for you people—for what you can do, that's just surrender. Now we get Eugene to Washington and he will make the Dead die and the living will have this world again. And that is not a bad takeaway for a little road trip."

Judith cooed in the quiet atmosphere and Rick pulled her to his chest.

"Eugene, what's in D.C.?" Abraham asked.

May had heard some about this master plan of Eugene's in Washington, D.C. from Carol, Rick, and Maggie. But, she'd thought long and hard about it and wondered how exactly the entire world could be saved by one man once he got to one city? Eugene was clearly above average intelligence, but could he rescue the world from ultimate peril?

"Infrastructure to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude. That means food, fuel, refuge… Restart."

His voice was like that of a machine or a drone. Spitting out silver information whenever he was asked to.

"However this plays out, however long it takes for the reset button to kick in, you can be safe there. Safer than you been since this whole thing started. Come with us; save the world for that little one," Abraham spoke, his eyes trained on Judith in her pale pink dress with her fair hair. "Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there who don't got nothin' left to do except survive."

The room fell silent until another coo left Judith's mouth. "What was that?" Rick asked her. "I think she knows what's goin' on. She's in; if she's in, I'm in. We're in."

May was careful not to allow sticks under each fall of her foot—in fear that the sound would alert Carol that she was, in fact, being followed. Perhaps May could reveal herself to Carol, but then she'd distract Carol from whatever reason she was creeping out in the deep, dark woods for. When they reached the road, May kept herself in the foliage as she watched Carol tamper with a jump-starter she'd retrieved from the trunk of a car.

Not a few feet behind her, May heard a crack underfoot—one similar to that which she had been afraid of Carol hearing. She heard not the moaning of the Dead, and therefore became more petrified. Nowadays, humans were often worse than the Dead. For instance, the horrific humans who had inhabited Terminus before it crumbled to the ground.

May retrieved the revolver tucked in her belt and pointed it in the direction of her attacker in one fast, sweeping motion. Carol's attention was drawn when May pulled back the hammer and cocked the revolver. Soon enough, the beam of a flashlight shined on May and he who she had her revolver aimed at. It was Daryl, holding his crossbow in firing position on his shoulder.

Carol couldn't help but smile to herself. Ever since she first met May she knew the girl would wind up in Daryl's life one way or another. May was withdrawn in the same way Daryl was, but she clung to an inexplicable hope that Daryl had spent all his life searching for. They were meant to be close, Carol knew, but it would take a while for them to adjust to such a closeness.

"My two little shadows," Carol grinned. Both Daryl and May lowered their weapons and walked out into the road to meet Carol.

The torn-up rubber of Daryl's boot met the pavement and the moon cast light onto his skin. "What're you doin'?" He asked Carol.

May walked quietly over to the car Carol had been toying with before her and Daryl's announced arrivals. She pressed her sore back against the side of the car and faced the moon. She often tried to stop herself and give herself the time to bathe in the nature of her God-given world. With imaginary lines she traced figures between the constellations.

"I don't know," Carol answered after a moment, her voice as fragile as porcelain.

Carol turned to May, watching how the rich redness of her hair transformed to rose-gold in the moonlight. She looked like she was made of the most precious gems—even in her torn garb and dirtied skin.

"Come on," Daryl gestured back to the woods with a tilt of his head. His direction was forgotten, however, when the sound of an engine came from the highway off which the road they stood on turned. He raced past May and watched the car as it swam by them at a leisurely speed—though still too fast to follow on foot. Daryl immediately swept his crossbow off the ground and used it to knock out the taillights. The pieces of plastic clattered as it hit the ground.

"What are you doing?" Carol asked urgently. "What are you doing?!"

"They got Beth!" He exclaimed shortly. Once both taillights were effectively knocked out, Daryl urged them all to get into the old sedan, pushing the three of them in the first row. May sat in the middle—shoulder-to-shoulder with Daryl and Carol quite uncomfortably.

Carol and Daryl began to talk about a girl named Beth. Daryl seemed to speak quite fondly of her, which made May begin to think Daryl might have had some two-timing, hardly-discernible streak. Carol didn't seem envious, which further pushed away May's blurry credence that the two were in a relationship.

"So Beth is Maggie's sister?" May asked, looking out Carol's window. She didn't want her eyes nearing Daryl—she was too besotted with the way he refused to grip the wheel with his hand and instead steer with only his forearm lying on the top of the wheel to look at him.

"Yes," Carol answered. "We first met the whole family at their farm a while back. There was originally Hershel, the girls' father, and Otis and Patricia, who were farmhands. Otis and Patricia didn't last long, but Hershel certainly did. I'd wish you could've met him, May. You would've liked him."

May smiled halfheartedly. She didn't like talking about what could've been; especially when death was the reason for the 'could' transforming into the 'could have'. "How old's Beth?"

"Seventeen. Turnin' eighteen soon."

"I 'member when I was seventeen," she laughed lightly to herself. "I was waitin' tables at this ol' honky-tonk where e'eryone in the town'd come to get drunk e'ery Friday and Saturday. I can't imagine bein' where she is now. All'd I care 'bout then was makin' big tips," she chuckled.

"The world's a different place," Carol smiled understandingly.

A moment of silence passed before Daryl announced calmly: "Rick's goin' to wonder where we went. Tank's runnin' low."

"We can end this quick, just run him off the road," Carol told him.

"Nah, we're good for a bit."

"If they're holding her somewhere we can just get it out of the driver."

"Yeah, but if he don't talk we're back to square one," Daryl said. "Right now we got the advantage. We'll find out who they are and what they do… See what we got to do to get 'er back."

Carol pursed her lips, obviously not entirely on the same page as Daryl but figuring he wouldn't budge. May's eyes followed the shaded highway signs and leaned forward, looking around.

"They're headed north. To I-85," she commented. Daryl nodded in response. May kept leant forward as she saw the skyline of Atlanta grow like a sponge absorbing water. It was dark and dilapidated.

"What, you ain't never seen Atlanta 'fore?" Daryl asked her. May looked back at him and caught his eyes shortly before slumping back in the seat.

"I been t' Atlanta," she rolled her eyes. "I just ain't seen a city since it happened. An' this one don't look too hot."

"You can say that again," Carol agreed under her breath.

The city slid towards them, getting progressively larger like it sat on a saucer that flew for their faces. The highway was cracked in its foundation and covered with mosses and litter, but they still passed down the long, straight expressway unhindered, like a ghost in the shadows following the car before them, with its identifiable white-cross windows. The route the car they followed took was relatively clear of Walkers, but it tangled in with the smaller streets of the crust of Atlanta, making it necessary to augment the space between Daryl, Carol, and May, and the white-cross car. When the car stopped, Daryl was careful to park in the shadows—where they would not be seen. A few of the Dead roamed around the area, but not enough to worry about.

For at least five minutes, the car in front of them stayed put. Its drivers were obviously still present, but they were not leaving the car. May looked around; she couldn't see any nearby herds that would prevent them from getting out of the car, nor were there any other cars approaching. She uneasily began to consider the car's drivers had seen them.

"What the hell's he waitin' for?" Daryl asked mindlessly. He reached for the keys to turn off the engine, and just as he did the white-cross car's engine turned off. Its glowing taillights that seemed to stick out in the dark like the red eyes of the scary wolves in forests in the movies faded; the wolf closed its eyes.

May's fingers wrapped around the revolver that was suddenly in her lap. Daryl looked at her small hands; they were messily pared at the nails and painted with numerous slender red cuts and scabs. He figured they could be the hands of a klutz or a Nervous Nelly, but by the firmness in her grip and the steadiness of her fingers, Daryl could tell she'd gotten those superficial injuries the same way he'd gotten the nicks on his arms and the scrapes on his hands. They were both fighters. They weren't afraid to get their hands dirty and maybe even a little bloody.

"There's two of 'em," she mentioned in a low voice. Daryl cast his eyes back to the windshield, watching as someone got out of the passenger seat of the car.

"That a police officer?" Carol asked in an utterly confused voice.

They sat in silence, waiting to see something more. Somehow, none of them were aware of how quiet the scene had become. Their lungs locked in air and they didn't even seem to be breathing.

Then suddenly a purpling hand slammed up on the window with a slap. Carol, with the Walker at her window, jolted, as did May and Daryl. Carol's hand flew to her chest and she rolled her eyes while a small and short-lived smile appeared on Daryl's lips.

As the Walker repeatedly slammed whatever it could against Carol's window, the police person came back outside with a bike, throwing it into the street near the car. The person lugged around litter and some other discarded objects before heading back to the car. However, they became distracted by the sound of the Dead knocking on Carol's window. After waiting momentarily, the person took slow steps towards the car and hopped back in. Soon enough the wolf's red eyes were open again and turning down the street on which the police officer had thrown the bike.

When the white-cross car was gone, Daryl reached for the keys again. He turned on the engine but it only sputtered. He kept trying with the keys in vain, only to give up. "Shit! Tank's tapped," he cursed. He looked over to Carol and May with his left hand gripping the wheel. "They'd've taken the bypass and they didn't. They must be holed up in the city someplace."

May pushed herself up higher in her seat and leaned forward, looking out the windshield with squinted eyes. In the faraway darkness which the white-cross car had parked just in front of, the moon cast baby rays onto an oncoming herd which Daryl and Carol had apparently yet to see.

"Shit," she swore. She released one hand from her tight grip on her revolver and pointed to the herd—only few from the first line could be seen, but Daryl and Carol both immediately knew what was coming for them.

"We got'a move. Find someplace to hole up 'til sunlight," Daryl said and May nodded.

"I know a place just a couple of blocks from here," Carol said. "We can make it."

As Carol rolled the window down a few inches, she gestured to May who already had a knife in her hand. Daryl recognized it as a U.S. Military bayonet, and he found himself wondering how she would have obtained it.

May penetrated the drooping eyeball of the Walker and it slid right off her blade. She pulled her hand back into the car and wiped the contents of the Dead's head on her pant leg, staining it burgundy. Carol kicked open the door and jumped out of the car, May followed closely behind. Daryl appeared next to them shortly and they began to run down the sidewalk. May continually looked back, gauging the space between them and the herd. They were set in those matters, but she had no doubt they would meet other obstacles on the journey.

Expectedly, as they rounded their first corner, about a dozen of the Dead turned towards them at the sound of commotion. Trudging forward, they came closer and closer until Daryl, Carol, and May began taking each out one-by-one. To Daryl's surprise, May took out the most of the three of them. She was fast, and somehow he had not yet noticed just how fast. Most of these Walkers she took out with that handy little push dagger. He had to get one of those, he thought.

The trip was longer than Carol had made it sound, but they arrived in decent shape. Carol led them to the entrance, which Daryl would have to chip away at until the plank of wood which boarded it up fell. The Dead were still on their trail, and they would build up unless someone started taking them out. Carol and May both seemed willing to take this position, but with one simple touch to Carol's shoulder, May indicated that she would be doing it alone. Carol had admired May for that quality since she first met her almost a month and a half ago—May could have entire conversations through simple gestures and individual touches.

May didn't go after the Dead, she just waited until each came to her. When they did, she would quietly slip her push dagger into what remained of their brain from the underside of their mandibles.

Daryl appreciated how he didn't hear a peep of complaint leave her mouth as he chipped away at the wooden plank; it was taking longer than he'd expected. Even Carol may have complained, or simply asked if he was almost done.

"Almost there," he said under his breath, and Carol announced it to May. Finally, May heard the wood crack and fall to the concrete foundation Carol and Daryl stood on. She stabbed the nearest Walker in the brain before speeding off to slip into the building Carol had led them to. As May went inside, Daryl waited at the door for Carol to come in, but she stood there with wide eyes as she tried to take in the status of the looming Dead at that very moment. The herd was coming.

"Come on!" May shouted, and with this Carol complied.

The building was a center for victims of domestic abuse, and suddenly May was not so surprised why Carol was aware this place existed. The older woman had mentioned bits and pieces of her life before it happened, and May had never pried, but she had gotten the gist. What pushed May further from ease was the feeling she was getting from Daryl. He didn't seem comfortable in the place, but not in the way she would expect a man to be in a domestic abuse center. He seemed uncomfortable in the way a poorer person is when they look at the happy lives of those within the higher socioeconomic brackets. He was uncomfortable because he was… envious.

There was something about Daryl that rang an alarm in May's head, but she truly couldn't yet tell why. She knew it was because of his uncommunicative tendencies and his unfailing street-smarts, but she didn't know why that set off so many bells in her head. So she just ignored it.

The skeletal corpse of an older woman laid near the front office of the abuse center. The bullet at her temple and the scattered cerebral matter across the wall behind her suggested she'd taken her life. With a terribly insufficient amount of respect for the brave woman, May swept up the keys that spilled from the pocket of the woman's cardigan.

On a door titled "Service Center", May used the keys and let the three of them in to a small, marble-walled office. Daryl flickered his flashlight around the place, looking here and there. "You used to work here or something?" He asked.

She hesitated in her response: "Or something."

May began to push the long desk in the room over the door through which they'd entered. Daryl leant in a hand to help, but soon realized she didn't really need his help. She was small—her arms as thin as wire and the feminine curves of a woman's body hardly on hers—but that little meat that covered her bones seemed to be mostly muscle. Daryl was surprised at how sylphlike she looked, that of which so sharply contrasted with the strength she exerted.

May redirected her attention to the door opposite that which they'd passed through earlier and saw Carol fumbling with its knob. Perhaps May was distracted by Daryl's hollowed-out cheeks when he held the flashlight between his lips, and the profound bone structure that was suddenly revealed, because when Carol looked at her expectedly it took her a few moments to capture May's attention.

"Oh," May muttered, throwing Carol the keys. As Carol slid the fitting key into the lock, she couldn't help but let a small smile ghost the corners of her lips.

Daryl and May walked on silent feet behind Carol as she led them, seemingly knowing her way around the place well. She eventually brought them to a bedroom with a bunkbed. "What's this?"

"It's temporary housing," Carol answered. Apparently Daryl hadn't been aware of the exact function of a domestic abuse center, which was odd considering how affected he'd initially seemed by it. Maybe she had imagined it all, she figured.

May laid her revolver on the desk and noticed Daryl's flashlight hovered all too long on a thin book that rested on the desk beside the bunkbed: Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse: Psychotherapy for the Interrupted Life. "You came here?" He asked.

"We didn't stay," Carol said as she lifted her long A4 rifle from her neck and rested it against the wall.

"I'll take the floor," May said, opening up the drawers in the desk hoping to find a folded blanket or something of that ilk.

"Don't worry, I got it," Daryl shook his head.

"No, I'll take first watch. You two both get some rest in the beds," Carol clarified. She made the statement with a definite air, similar to that which an older family member can hold when telling the younger members what to do.

Regardless, May argued. "Locked up tight, 'ere. Don't need no one on watch."

"I know we don't need to, but I don't mind. I'll take first watch."

"Suit yourself," Daryl said as he shrugged off his leather jacket. He turned around and looked at the bottom bunk—hot pink duvet and all. He opened his mouth but found himself interrupted.

"I'll take top bunk," May said with a very small and very sneaky smile on her lips. "Bottom looks more your style anyway."

May was somehow defeated when she failed to pull even a semblance of a smirk out of him. She bit the inside of her lips as she often did when she felt embarrassed or let-down.

As she removed all her weapons from her person, placing most on the ground and desk but tucking some up in the bed, Carol turned away from the small, rectangular window she looked out of. "You said we get to start over," she said. "Did you?"

May looked at Carol for an explanation to her vague statement and question, but she found her eyes were on Daryl. Clearly, Carol was alluding to an earlier conversation Daryl and Carol had and, thus, did not involve her.

Daryl glanced at May before responding, noticing how she paused as she cleaned and put away her weapons. He wondered why Carol would bring up the conversation in front of May, as it wasn't just rather personal for Carol but also Daryl. However, he figured maybe May was just so mindful of others' business anything could be said in front of her and she'd understand she wasn't in the place to comment on it. He'd never really realized he liked that quality in people until he realized how May just kept on moving, contrary to the intimate conversation that was blooming.

Daryl paused, still a little wary of her presence despite his previous thoughts. "I'm tryin'," he stated. He looked skeptically at May again, who had slid onto the floor and was rubbing the stains of dried viscera from her bayonet with a ruddied rag. "Why don't you say what's really on your mind?"

"I don't think we get to save people anymore."

May paused in her cleaning of her blade and this did not go unnoticed by Daryl. However, Carol didn't need to look at May to know that she had been affected by what she'd said.

All May could think about was all the people she wanted to save. And yet these were the same people whose blood spilt from the wounds she had designed and the same people whose blood had been crusted under her fingernails for weeks until she finally bit her fingernails so deep and hard her own blood began to swell in vermillion dewdrops.

But this statement didn't make sense to Daryl, as here they were out in the city trying to save Beth. "Then why're you here?"

"I'm trying."

May felt a brutish and ironic chuckle rise in her stomach, but she did not let it leave her mouth. I had tried too, she thought. It's not worth your time.

Carol walked over to sit next to Daryl on the pink bed and she laid down with her hand behind her head. May realized there was no use at getting comfortable just then, because a nearly silent sound rattled in her ears. She stood up quickly, causing Daryl and Carol to stand too.

"What is it?" He asked. Before she could answer, there was a bang that echoed from the hall their room was attached to. May took only her army bayonet into the hallway, heading in the direction of the banging. Daryl was close to her soon, his crossbow poised near her head, and Carol crept along behind them. As they reached the end of the hall, Daryl handed May the flashlight and she aimed it towards the opaque glass doors that closed off several small rooms. Soon enough, the body of a Walker was pressed against the glass. Daryl sighed, releasing the posture with which he held the crossbow. Seconds after the walker threw itself at the door, another appeared pressed against the next glass door down. Hauntingly, however, this Walker was small and dressed in a frock. It was just a little girl.

And all May could think about was Kathy, wearing her little Communion dress with her hair curled into auburn ringlets. And the way May had to blot the infectious sweat from the little girl's pale forehead and how she had to bury her on her tenth birthday.

Carol leaned for the handle on the first door, preparing herself with a knife in hand.

"Stop," May said in a voice that clearly said the issue was not up for negotiation.

Daryl was supposed to take the second shift, but when Carol had returned, May had asked her if she could take it from him. They left him asleep on the bottom bunk and Carol switched places with May. When Daryl woke up early by a few minutes, he was flustered as he was supposed to be woken up halfway through the night. He was ready to yell at someone, but his heartbeat gradually slowed as he noticed a tunnel of smoke swirled up into the sky like a miniature tornado. Worried that there was a fire, Daryl jumped out of bed and ran out of the room, down the hall to the door that led out onto the roof. He opened it and stepped out quickly, but he slowed when he saw May sitting right not to the fire.

Two blackened bodies were discernible at the heart of the fire, and the scent of burning flesh stirred his stomach but he pushed away the sensation. The gravel crunched quietly beneath his feet as he walked out to the origin of the smoke at a much slower rate than he had initially planned.

May heard him, but she did not halt her reading from the small and worn book in her hands: "At that time there shall arise Michael, the great prince, guardian of your people; It shall be a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until that time. At that time your people shall escape, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever."

Daryl couldn't even remember the last time anyone had given enough of a shit to give someone a funeral. Let alone give a Walker a funeral.

But truth be told, Daryl hadn't really minded that Carol and May had let him sleep a whole night. He'd been so angry because he'd planned to do the same thing as May.


Taa-daa! ( : Hope you enjoyed! Maybe when this starts taking off I can do like a Question of the Post thing... ( : Anyways, please comment/review, there's nothing I love more than seeing what you guys have to say.