Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I was working on my other story, then on vacation, and...just life in general. Enjoy! And, as always, please R&R!

xoxo Holly


The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

— Robert Frost, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'


When sleep began to escape from Rick's grasp, he became acutely more aware of his surroundings and was confused as to why he was so uncomfortable and why he was not waking up in his bed at home. Letting out a small grunt of discomfort, he opened his eyes fully and found he was staring at the back of something wood. Knitting his brow, he lifted his head and looked at the immediate area he was in and quickly it all came back to him that he was in a church and he'd been sleeping upon a cushioned pew. Pushing himself upright into a sitting position, he looked down at his left and saw his uniform shirt which he remembered balling up and using as some sort of pillow for his head. Then he just sat in silence and let all the pieces of the former day fall back into place.

He remembered that Charlie had agreed to the removal of the three walkers they'd killed the day before; just setting them beside the church. Then Charlie had forgotten about the head to the female walker and had to lift it by its hair and carry it outside like a baby's soiled diaper and then just tossing unceremoniously atop the bodies; still chomping at the air because Charlie hadn't stabbed it in the head either. Rick did, though, with a grimace. Since the walkers had been seated toward the front of the church, marinating in the stench of their decay for weeks and weeks on end, and since that was where they'd slain, Rick and Charlie had opted for sleeping toward the back. They had opened the windows to let some fresh air in, but shut the doors to protect themselves from anything or anyone wandering inside.

They knew they were taking a risk, leaving the horse out front, for two specific reasons. Firstly, because the horse was a beacon of life and the dead could happen upon it, while Rick and Charlie slept, and feast. Secondly, it could alert anyone acquainted with the men that had been following them and that they had killed. It would be a giveaway that they were inside the church, but it was a risk they had to take. They had gone outside and circled the church and its attached building and there wasn't a better or easier place to tie the horse up. They would just have to take their chances.

After checking the perimeter, they had force their way into both the upper and lower levels of the attached building. The downstairs had only one entrance and it was located at the front, all the way to the left of the building. Inside was a large kitchen to the left and to the right was simply open space with old pews against the walls. They checked the cabinets and the fridge; discovering a good deal of non-perishable food, bottles of water, cans of generic soda and a one gallon jug of fruit punch. Sitting on the counters, Rick and Charlie ate cans of tuna and drank Dr. Perky, which they both recognized as a knock-off of Dr. Pepper from Food Lion grocery stores.

Even though they could've just left their trash on the counters when they were finished, neither felt right about doing it, so they tossed the empty cans into a plastic garbage bin they found inside the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Inside a cupboard filled with cleaning supplies and a few cobwebs, they found plastic bags and a single cloth tote bag fill up with the food and beverages they'd found. Lugging the bags outside with two mixing bowls they'd found from one of the cupboards, they set them down on the front steps to the church. In one bowl they emptied out a bottle of water and in the other bowl they emptied out a box of store brand corn flakes. Now the horse would finally be able to eat and drink something. It had earned it, carrying Rick and now also Charlie, and never putting up a fuss.

To the side of the front steps was another set of stairs, set back a ways. Curious, they climbed those stairs to find themselves standing amidst a narrow breezeway that connected the church to the upstairs section of the attached building. In front of them was a set of patio chairs, a patio couch and matching table between. Beyond the breezeway was a view of the church's cemetery. To their right was a door that led into the sanctuary and to the left was the door that led into the attached building's upstairs. Opening that door slowly in case anything jumped out at them, Rick went first; his Colt drawn. Nothing did jump out at them, though. No one living or dead was anywhere upstairs. The only walkers they'd had to deal with were those three inside the church.

They scoured the rooms, which consisted of a small bathroom with only two stalls, a church office, a pastor's office, and three small Sunday school classrooms; one of which had an upright piano against the wall and a cabinet full of choir robes. There was no other food upstairs, except for a few candy bars stashed in a desk drawer of the pastor's office, but there were two things of use that Charlie had made sure to grab.

"What've you got?" Rick had asked as they made their way out of the attached building.

"Toilet paper and soap," she replied. "You'd be surprised how often I've found unused toilet rolls of toilet paper in the homes I've scavenged over the last two months. Food, water and medicine are always the first things to be taken. But food you can grow and water you can collect. Medicine, okay, that's a necessity, but it ain't somethin' that's needed all the time unless you got ongoin' medical issues. But, toilet paper? You need that shit. Daily. No pun intended."

That night, they had settled in in the church, since the pews were cushioned. They'd checked on the horse a few times to see that it was okay. Rick had even taken it for a walk around the buildings twice for some extra exercise before turning in for the night, but also as an excuse for to check the perimeter and make sure they were safe. Tying the reins around the railing again, Rick had brushed his hand along the horse's mane and bid it goodnight.

Inside the church, Rick and Charlie had talk about inconsequential stuff; just making small talk until they were too tired to keep their eyes open. Then, with polite wishes of a good night, they both sank down into their respective pews and went to sleep.

And that brought Rick back to the present, sitting there in said pew, looking around and not seeing anything out of the ordinary other than the fact that he was waking up in a strange church and his family was lost from him somewhere out there in a world infested by the dead walking around.

It was like a very bad horror movie. Or a good one.

He supposed it depended on the perspective, but he was going with bad.

The more he paid focused on the quiet of the church, the more he realized how quiet it really wasn't. A couple of pews up and across the aisle was where Charlie sleeping. Or, at least, was supposed to be sleeping. Just sitting there, he could hear that she was stirring awake judging by the subtle sounds of her body moving around on her pew. He remained silent, waiting for her to sit up before he wished her a good morning or asked how she slept. But then he was pretty sure he heard the familiar sound of muted crying. He knew it well from those occasions when Lori was upset about something and was trying to hide it from him or trying not to wake him up. He remembered it mostly after Lori's grandmother had died a few years back. She had been terribly close to her grandmother and took it terribly hard when she was gone. After the initial loss, she passed into a period where she seemed to have gotten passed it but every so often, over the course of the following months, something triggered her grief and she would break down into a bout of fresh tears. But, eventually, as with all things, time eventually healed that pain and those tears stopped falling.

Rick had known what Charlie had suffered the day before, with how horribly she'd lost her mother and had been forced to witness it, but with how she'd been handling herself the day before since they'd met, and how whatever happened and whatever was bothering her, it was easy for him to forget about it and think only on what was missing from his life and how he was trying to deal with this new world. He kept forgetting he wasn't the only one struggling to go forward and be strong. He kept forgetting that that he didn't have a monopoly on grief, especially since her family was gone and dead while his was possibly still alive.

"Charlie…"

And like that the sniffling stopped.

Either she realized he'd heard her or she was trying to pretend all was fine and that she hadn't been crying at all.

"Yeah?"

"You awake."

"Well, I just answered you, so…"

Rick smirked. "We should head out soon," he suggested. "Hopefully we can find a working car at some point today. Kinda don't want to let the horse go off on its own, though."

Charlie sat up, looking forward toward the front of the church and not over at Rick. "The horse would probably stand a better chance without us."

"You're probably right," Rick shrugged. "When I found it yesterday, its owners were dead in their house and it looks like they'd been dead a while. The horse was fine. It had grass to feed on, there was a trough full of rainwater to drink from, and it was fenced in so nothing was getting at it anytime soon."

"The world keeps turnin' with or without mankind," Charlie remarked. "Be mankind dead or alive."

"Yeap."

As she stood up, she finally looked over at him and then gestured toward the door that led to that breezeway between the church and its attached building. "I'm gonna go use the bathroom, freshen up a bit. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Rick nodded. "Okay."

Watching her walk sideways through the rest of her pew as she slipped out into the center aisle, his gaze shifted to the bags they'd filled with supplies the evening before. Charlie shuffled through a couple of them; withdrawing a bottle of water, a roll of toilet paper and tiny, wrapped bar of hand soap. Gathering up those three things in her hands, Charlie made her way around to that connecting door and slipped out into the breezeway without a word as Rick's gaze continued to follow after her.

He sat there where he was for a few moments longer before getting up and making his way to the very front. He stood there at the base of the altar area, with his hands clasped together while looking up at the large crucifix on the wall. He chewed on the inside of his bottom lip; mulling over his thoughts and picking at his fingernails.

"I'm not much of a believer. Never really have been," he spoke up to the crucifix, or perhaps just to himself. "I guess I just chose to put my faith elsewhere. My family, mostly. My friends. My job. The thing is—now I don't have anything of that to lean on. Well, I have Charlie with me and I guess I can consider her a friend now and vice versa, but we—I need something more to go on. I need something to help me get through this world and help me find my family, or at least find out what happened to them." Rick hung his head down, scuffing the toe of his boot upon the church's marron carpet. "If they're gone, if my wife and son are dead, I don't know how to go on with my life. What's the point without them? Maybe…maybe this is all a lost cause. Maybe humankind is a lost cause and we should all just give up." He looked back up again, gazing upon the detail of the painted on drops of blood around Jesus's face and upper chest. "Some acknowledgment would be nice. Some indication that I'm on the right path; that I'm headed the right way. You don't know how hard that is to know. Well, maybe you do." Rick sighed at the heavy silence in the church. "Hey look, I don't need all the answers. Just a little nudge. A sign. Any sign will do."

As if on cue, the horse outside neighed.

But it wasn't a typical neigh.

The horse sounded frightened and possibly in terrible pain.

With the hair on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end, Rick turned and ran down the center aisle; stopping briefly to pick his utility belt up off the floor of the pew he'd been sleeping on. Grabbing his Colt out of the holster, he let the rest of the belt slip back to the floor and went straight to the church's red double doors and yanked one of them open.

There, at the base of the stone steps, the horse had collapsed under the accumulation of injuries sustained by half a dozen walkers that had it surrounded and the weight of said walkers pressed against the animal's body. Decayed fingers of the dead were clawing at and digging into the horse's flesh, ripping it open and pulling out its innards to feast upon.

With his shoulders slumping with a sense of defeat, Rick groaned under his breath. "This wasn't exactly the sign I was hoping for," he mumbled.

Standing there, Rick had exposed his presence to the walkers and shouldn't have been surprised when half of the walkers turned toward him and tried making their way up the stone steps toward him, but he was. Tensing slightly, Rick reacted appropriately by raising his Colt and firing a shot into the heads of each walker. He'd missed with the last one, and his gun clicked; letting him know he'd run out of bullets. So, Rick stepped back into the church and closed the door and rushed to grab a box of ammo from his duffel bag. Loading his gun accordingly with the six rounds it only allowed, Rick returned back to the door and pulled it opened and was startled again when he saw that last walker was suddenly inches from his face. Stumbling back a bit, Rick aimed his gun point blank and pulled the trigger. Such close proximity caused the walker's head to jerk back roughly from the gunshot before its entire body dropped and tumbled backward down the steps.

Sighing heavily, Rick took a moment to gather his wits; stepping back further into the church and leaning the small of his back against the very last pew behind him.

A few seconds later, Charlie burst through the breezeway door, looking flustered and holding a handgun he hadn't realized she'd taken with her to the bathroom.

"What was all that gunfire?" she questioned; her dark eyes wide with alarm. "Did those men—?"

Rick was quick to shake his head. "No. Walkers." He frowned; a little disappointed in himself. He should've gone to check on the horse first rather than appealing to some statue of a deity. "They got the horse."

Charlie didn't seem too upset, but she wasn't exactly pleased by this turn of events either. "Well, fuck," she muttered; her shoulders slumping the same as Rick's did. "Did you get all of 'em?"

"Yeah."

"What about the horse?"

"What about it? We can't exactly ride him anymore."

"No, you idiot." She shot him a withering look. "Did you put the horse out of its misery?"

"No. I just got done killing those walkers."

"Well, it's cruel to just let the horse languish like that. He got us this far. He deserves not to suffer so long."

Without saying anything else, Charlie stepped to the front doors and out into the morning sunlight. Rick followed behind and both were careful to sidestep the dead walkers on and around the steps. Sinking down onto one of those steps just above where the horse was lying upon its side and wheezing heavily with labored breaths while bleeding out, Charlie brought a hand to its mane and started to stroke it soothingly. Rick watched as she shushed it and muttered to it in a low, calm voice and assured the horse that it was alright. And then Rick watched as Charlie pressed the barrel of her handgun to the back of the horse's head and pulled the trigger twice. Two shots to make sure it died quick.

The horse stilled then.

Its head slumped against one of the bottom steps, the midsection stopped moving with the ceasing of breath, but the blood still seeped from the open wound and several innards still seemed to be tumbling out onto the ground below.

Looking back at Rick with a frown, Charlie rested her handgun upon her thigh. "Looks like we're walking now."


Rick and Charlie, burdened down with bags of supplies, were now on foot as they made their way along the same road from the day before; only, this time, in the opposite direction as not to potentially cross paths with the rest of those men who they weren't sure were still looking for them or not. Rick's wristwatch told them that it was barely nine in the morning, but the sun in the sky that wasn't yet overhead was another determining factor of that. The day was young and they had a whole lot of it ahead of them to figure out where they would go.

"…And your certain your wife and kid wouldn't have gone to any family nearby?"

Rick, with his duffel bag full of guns and ammo strapped to his back, adjusted his grip on the straps of either bag he was carrying in both of his hands; having offered to carry the tote full of canned goods and the plastic bag full of bottled water. He glanced slightly over his shoulder back at Charlie who was walking a few steps behind him, carrying the plastic bag of toiletries and few soda cans in one hand and another plastic bag carrying the remainder of non-perishable food items in the other hand. The jug of fruit punch they had decided wasn't a necessity. It was just too bulky and awkward to carry, not to mention all that sugar content wouldn't help with potential dehydration. Sure, the soda wasn't exactly better, either, but at least it was compact and easier to transport.

"No, like I said yesterday, Lori's an only child and her folks moved to Mesa a few years ago. She was never close to aunts, uncles or cousins. Neither was my family," Rick replied, looking back forward. "Even if I was, mine's a bit north in Cynthiana, Kentucky. But Lori never knew them. I mean, she would've met a small handful at our wedding, but that was thirteen years ago."

"What about friends?"

"Pretty much only friend I had these days was Shane. It was a good thing he was also my partner, otherwise I wouldn't have had the time to maintain that friendship. Work, family…it all gets in the way of anything else."

"Did Shane have a family of his own?"

"No. He was single. Both his parents died a couple years ago like mine, but they were much older. He'd kind of been an 'oops' baby. So, his parents getting sick and dying like they did wasn't too much of a shock."

"Yours was?"

"Well, not my dad so much. He was a smoker all his life. Add that to just overworking himself and congestive heart failure isn't too much of a shock, but I still wasn't prepared for it. My mom died years that, though. Cancer. She never got to see Carl born. To see or hold her only grandchild," Rick continued. Rattling off his personal history with Charlie felt oddly comforting, especially since he wasn't one for really opening up and talking about feelings or whatever was bothering him. Perhaps it was just a nice distraction from the frustration of not knowing where Lori and Carl was, the fact that they were without direction or that they weren't sure if or when they'd find proper transportation and shelter for the night. "Losing my mom back then was rough. I think that was the final straw that sent my brother packing."

"Why's that?"

"I think he'd always had a thing for Lori. The two of them had been friends in high school and he was the one that had introduced me to Lori in the first place. I figure he always regretted that decision, especially once Lori and I made it official by getting married. He didn't come 'round to visit us much, and then our mom got sick, and then she died. He was still living at home and my dad could sometimes be a brute. I was never some all-American jock type who was a daddy's boy, but I certainly got along with my father much better than Jeff did. Jeff was a more…sensitive soul. He butted heads with my father and without my mother there as a buffer anymore, Jeff packed up and just took off with barely a word goodbye to any of us. He went traveling, working odd jobs. He'd come home for the holidays. He kept in touch, but I haven't really seen much of him since Carl was born. I don't think choosing Shane as Carl's godfather over Jeff helped any."

Charlie listened intently. It was nice having him talk about something that could take her mind off losing her mother. She let her mind wander; picturing all these things about his life he was describing. It gave her better insight into this man she had only just met and had agreed to travel the great unknown of this new world with; who she had basically pledged her foreseeable future to.

"So, Shane has no family," she remarked, steering them back on topic. "If he had no family of his own to seek out and Lori didn't either, maybe they sought each other out and got out together."

"Maybe," Rick nodded. "I'd certainly trust their lives to him. Shane would definitely keep them safe to the best of his ability if that's what happened."

"Where would Shane have taken them?"

Rick shrugged. Or, at least, as best he could with all the bags he was carrying. "Probably to Atlanta like everyone else, but Shane's always had good insight into things. That's what made him a good cop. If he saw shit was going from bad to worse, he would've kept Lori and Carl from something like that or gotten them away as soon as he could. At least, I hope so."

"Okay…so where would they have gone? Any other friends he was friends with but you weren't? Or maybe to hospitals, police stations, schools, or a church like we found?"

"King County is a ghost town. I don't know of any other place they might've sought out."

"Well, it doesn't have to be someplace they knew. Just someplace they felt could've been safe. Somethin' with sturdy walls to keep the dead out. Somethin' with food and water," Charlie suggested, coming up more alongside Rick. "We can check those kinds of places."

"I guess."

"Even if they're not in those places, maybe we'll find other survivors who might've seen 'em."

Rick felt a little antsy talking about these possibilities. They were good suggestions and he was getting frustrated with himself that he wasn't the one thinking of them. So, he fell quiet.

Charlie seemed to pick up his sullenness. Or maybe she picked up on his uncertainty. "We can check homes outside Atlanta. There's plenty of gated communities. Or maybe refugee camps outside the city for those who didn't make it there or got out in time like I did. I mean, there were plenty of people stuck on the road in both directions. Lori, Shane, Carl…they coulda been any number of those people I passed. Maybe those people set up camp somewhere near the main roads."

Despite not speaking, Rick somehow managed to become quieter.

"They might be with other people, too. Safety in numbers and all that—"

"Okay," Rick bit out somewhat curtly. He stopped in his tracks and turned to looked sternly at Charlie. "I get it. There's a billion different places or situations my wife and son can be in. Or they could be dead. And I have no idea where to start with any of it. I have no idea where to look first or which road to take."

Charlie pursed her lips together and frowned back at him. "I'm just offerin' up suggestions. I'm tryin' to help. I get you're at a loss over what to do and where to go next, but that's why I'm with you. To help. You ain't gotta be a dick about it."

Rick sighed.

A moment later, Charlie scoffed and continued walking ahead with a roll of her eyes, without waiting on him.

After a second sigh, Rick hung his head and followed after her.


After barely an hour of walking, they stopped for a break to have a little something to eat and drink since they hadn't eaten or drank anything since the evening before. They sat on the side of the road in silence, passing a bag of Fritos back and forth. Not wanting to finish off the entire bag, Charlie rolled it up as best she could and stuffed it back into the plastic bag she'd been carrying. Rick and Charlie got back up after that and continued on their way, finding nothing but a few ranch-style homes along the way, set back off the road, that seemed unlikely that his family, or anyone for that matter, would be seeking sanctuary in. They also began coming upon more vehicles on the road, all abandoned and full of potential. None seemed to have keys, which was okay because both Rick and Charlie knew how to hotwire cars. However, the cars that were viable either had corpses baking inside for weeks on end from the heat, or were without gas because they'd run out or survivors had siphoned the remainder for other cars.

Continuing on, and nearing the noon hour, Rick and Charlie walked in step together down the middle of the road when they heard a rumbling sound of a vehicle coming from half a mile down the road from the direction they'd been coming from.

"In the woods," Charlie barked, already stepping carefully down the slope from the road toward the tree coverage.

Not hesitating at all, Rick followed behind her and the both of them darted into the woods where they hunkered down amongst some shrubbery so they could still manage to get a glimpse of the vehicle that was approaching while remaining hidden for their safety. Crouched down in silence and fraught with unease, they waited for less than a minute when a truck came ambling toward them. From the distance away it was still at, they could tell there was obviously someone at the wheel, but also there was someone standing up in the back bed that was leaning forward onto the roof. Up ahead were more cars and trucks that Rick and Charlie had been about to approach and check for themselves to see if there was any potential to them, and those cars and trucks are what caused the approaching truck to slow its speed to it could maneuver around safely.

As the truck drove past where Rick and Charlie were hidden within the trees on the side of the road, they were able to just barely catch a glimpse that there were two men in the front cab of the truck and three in the back bed, including the man standing up. The man standing up seemed to be holding onto some off road roof lights with one hand and a shotgun with the other hand. The other two in the back bed were sitting and holding shotguns of their own, aimed upwards. Rick and Charlie suddenly felt confident in their decision to get off the road as quickly as they had. Even if the men in that truck weren't affiliated with the men from the day before, they didn't seem all that friendly.

Rick and Charlie waited until the truck had disappeared up the road and around the bend before they dared to step out from between the trees.

And when they did, they didn't last long out in the open.

Coming out of the woods from the other side of the road was the beginnings of at least a dozen or more walkers that had been drawn by the noise of the truck thundering along. Only a couple seemed to have spotted the pair stepping out from the safety of the trees and that's all it took for Rick and Charlie to turn back around and slip back into the woods.

"Go, go," Rick urged.

Carrying the supplies they had on them, and with the amount of walkers coming out of the woods across the way, neither of them were in a position to take part in any sort of Mexican standoff with the dead.

They ran, darting around trees and just heading straight, deeper into the woods. Neither came to a stop until they were at least a football field's length away from the road. Only then did they stop and look back and determine if the dead had followed. They also took the time to properly catch their breath as their hearts were beating wildly in their chests from the adrenaline rush.

Charlie looked to Rick and Rick looked to Charlie.

"Maybe it's best we just stay off the roads for a little while?" she suggested.

Rick nodded; okay with that idea. "These woods have gotta come out somewhere. When we get wherever that is, we'll get back onto a road; maybe find a better path to be on."

Charlie nodded as well.

And then a walker came stepping out from around a tree with its arms outstretched toward Charlie, who jumped and stumbled backward.

"Shit," she blurted.

Dropping her bags, she fumbled the handgun she had tucked back into the back of her pants like she had the day before. Rick, fortunately, was quicker to react and reach for his Colt. He contributed to so many years on the job. Just like a gunslinger from the old west, he dropped his own bags with ease, pulled his Colt out and shot straight for the walker's head and one shot was all it took. The walker dropped backward like a sack of coal and Rick wasted no time in offering Charlie his hand to help her up. Having lost her footing when the walker came out of nowhere at her, and while trying to reach for her gun, she had slipped and fallen upon one of the bags she'd dropped.

Once she was upright and brushing some soil and twigs from her ass, she nodded at Rick. "Thanks."

"Welcome."

Charlie rubbed her left hip from where she'd landed on one of those bags and then crouched down to inspect that bag. "Shit."

"What?"

"My fat ass crushed all the Dr. Perky."

Rick smiled and snickered. "At least that's our only loss."

"Yeah, I know. But soda's gotta be, like, a rare delicacy these days, and my ass just crushed three cans of it like sack of bricks." Charlie sighed. "Well, fuck."

Still smirking, Rick slowly grew more serious as he watched her dump out the cans of soda and removed the unopened four-pack of toilet paper, and checking it over. As she transferred the toilet paper to her other bag, after giving it a shake to free it of Dr. Perky residue, Rick cleared his throat which caused her to look up at him.

"I'm sorry about earlier. About snapping at you," he apologized.

Charlie shrugged. "Water under the bridge."

"It wasn't really directed at you. It was just…" Rick breathed heavily out of his nostrils. "I'm trying to process this world still, and it's not easy. And I'm worried about where my family is, and I'm scared that they're dead and that I wasn't there to protect them."

Charlie took this in and accepted the excuse with just a nod. "I figured as much. And I get it, I do. But don't forget for a minute that you're the lucky one here," she warned. "You didn't have to live through the change this world went through and witness it fall apart like I did. You haven't lost your family like I did. You, at least, have a chance of still findin' 'em alive and well." Charlie shrugged and plastered a forced smile upon her face. "I don't."

"I know. I'm sorry for that, too." Rick sighed. "I know I have no right to complain when you've been through more."

"We've both been through shit. No doubt we still got more ahead of us."

Rick nodded and looked toward the direction they'd been heading toward. "And we should probably keep going ahead. Killing this walker might've drawn those from the road."

Charlie agreed. "Yeah, let's keep moving."


Still traveling throughout the woods, the only thing they had to contend with was a few mosquitoes and two more walkers; but at least with the latter they had seen them coming and enough time to prepare to kill them. They started making small talk again, literally about anything and everything; even about the weather and how rain didn't seem likely to happen any day soon. They were probably headed into a drought and they would have to drink their water sparingly, just in case.

Soon they came upon a small tent with a yellow tarp draped over it and camping supplies surrounding the outside of it, including a lantern.

Rick pointed it out and looked at Charlie with a bit of hope. "Might be some good supplies in there."

"What if someone's staying in this tent and they went off hunting or scavenging? We just gonna take another survivor's things?"

He hadn't even considered that the owner of the tent might be alive. "No, I guess not."

After a moment, Charlie shrugged. "Well, I s'pose it don't hurt to look."

The two of them looked at each other and smirked.

As they neared the tent, they could see that it was unzipped half way. Setting down their bags, Rick removed his Colt once more from its holster and Charlie removed her gun from the back of her pants; silently wishing she had a holster like Rick. Sidling up next to the flap, they were almost immediately hit with the overwhelming of decay. Their gag reflexes kicked in and both very nearly threw up the Fritos from that morning and the tuna from the evening before.

Grimacing at what they both figured was inside, but still needing to see for themselves, Rick and Charlie nodded at each other as Rick pushed the flap aside. Their gag reflexes worked double time and it was nearly impossible for either of them to keep a lid on the contents of their stomach. Pinching their nostrils shut, they peered inside and saw there was a decomposing man seated in a chair with his back to them. In his right hand, and dangling down at the ground, was a gun the man was still gripping onto. Reaching out, Rick grabbed the gun, which was a small Detective Special Colt revolver and he passed it over to Charlie. Taking the gun and turning away from the tent, she dropped it gently into Rick's duffel bag. When she looked back, she saw Rick had stepped further into the tent and was hurrying out after only seconds. He gripped his thighs and hunched forward; making a retching noise, as if he really were going to throw up. When he didn't, he stood up straight and looked over at Charlie with his brow furrowed and a frown upon his face.

"I don't think he'll mind if we took anything," Rick finally managed to speak.

Charlie agreed with a nod. "He took the easy way out. I doubt the distribution of his personal possessions were a high priority by that point." Her whole body shivered as a faint breeze carried the scent from within the tent out and assaulted her nostrils again. "Goddamn, he's ripe."

Rick wasn't about to mention the maggots crawling in and out of the man's face and make the situation worse. It was bad enough he'd seen it. He wasn't about to make her picture it and send everything she'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours spilling out of her mouth.

"Too bad that tent reeks to high heaven," she continued. "It'd be nice to have if we can't find decent shelter by nightfall."

Rick nodded and reached for the flashlight sitting atop a cooler. He flicked it on and off, but nothing happened; denoting a dead battery. He then tried the lantern, which did come on. Turning it back off to conserve however much battery power was left, he passed it along to Charlie who had a free hand. The only other thing that seemed worth taking was an axe with a long wooden handle. Taking the axe, he put it into his duffel bag, which he hoisted back up and threw around his shoulder. He then grabbed up the other bags of their supplies he'd been carrying and gestured for Charlie to resume the same; only now she also had the lantern. Before they continued on their way, Charlie looked around at where they were and gestured to their right.

"I think if we go that way, we'd be heading back in the direction of the church. Behind us is where we came from, so I think the best choices we got is to go left or go straight."

Rick looked around as well. "Honestly, I'm getting a bit turned about, but I think it'd be best to just go straight."

"Okay. Straight it is." Then, she asked, "You got all that?"

Looking down at the bags in either of his hands, he flexed his back muscles in an attempt to reposition how the guns within the duffel bag laid. "Yeah, I got it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

Rick nodded and, with a smile, repeated, "Okay."


Though they were hidden from direct sunlight under a canopy of trees, they didn't have to rely solely upon Rick's wristwatch to know what time it was. They could see enough of the sun to tell where in the sky it was and could tell by its waning arc that it was either late afternoon or early evening. Both looked at each other in silence and neither would give in to their respective frustrations over how lost they felt in these woods or how sore and tired they were from aimlessly carrying around their supplies.

"You'd think we were in South America, in the Amazon," Charlie muttered after a while; mostly to herself. "It's like we've been walking for days. These woods feel like they're goin' on forever."

Rick was unresponsive at first; too lost in thought. After what she'd said had pierced the veil that was his thought process, he turned and nodded at her. "Maybe we're just goin' around in circles. I've seen no discernable markings anywhere. All these trees look the same. We could be passing by new trees or passing the same ones. I really don't know."

"Well, let's hope we find the end of this labyrinth soon. I doubt it'd be safe spending the night in the woods."

"I dunno," Rick shrugged. "I'm starting to feel like that's the path we're headed on."

Charlie stopped walking, and then so did Rick.

"If that's the case, we better keep a lookout for some crazy ass trees that we can climb up into, with big ol' branches, wide enough to hold our weight through the night so we can sleep far enough off the ground," she suggested. "We don't want to wake up to walkers gnawin' at our ankles."

"Yeah," Rick agreed. As if expecting a walker to jump out from behind them, he looked over his shoulder to make sure nothing undead was nearby. "But hopefully we find an exit from these woods first."

"Well, yeah, obviously."

With a nod to each other, both continued forward, or, at least, what they believed to be forward. Every so often, Rick would look up and notice the sun was getting lower toward the horizon and the light within the woods was starting to gradually dim. His brow furrowed in continued frustration and he tried his best to remain positive. As not to let himself become swallowed up by pessimism, he tried focusing his mind on other things, like what he'd say to Lori and Carl if he ever saw them again. Or thanking Morgan again for helping out after he'd woken up into this world just two days ago.

Shit.

"Shit," Rick repeated allowed and instead of just in his mind as he stopped in his tracks, with Charlie doing the same as she looked expectantly at him.

"What?"

"Shit."

"What?" Charlie pressed.

"Morgan."

Charlie was confused for a moment, trying to figure out who that was, but quickly remembered Morgan was the man who had first explained the new world to Rick. "What about him?"

"I need to call him."

Charlie raised an eyebrow at Rick. "And how did you plan on doin' that exactly, what with all the cell towers bein' down?"

Rick cast a glance at her. "I gave him one of two walkies and he said he'd meet me in Atlanta in a few days. He's gonna radio me when he gets close so we can meet up," Rick clarified. "If what you said was true about the city, then Morgan and his son will be walking right into a death trap."

"If what I said wasn't true, you wouldn't be walkin' through these woods with me right now. Or, at the very least, if you didn't believe me, you would've gone straight into the city and then found out for yourself what it's like there." Charlie narrowed her gaze upon him, as if daring him to call her a liar. "If you were lucky, you might've found someplace to hide when droves of walkers came at you from every direction. Maybe you would've been rescued by some good Samaritan stuck in the city, same as you. Or maybe you would've been pinned down, ripped apart limb by limb and devoured."

"The point is I need to radio him."

"Well, I don't know how amazin' this walkie-talkie you have on you is, but you're not gonna be able to make contact with him in these woods," she remarked sensibly. "Even if your friend is headed to Atlanta this very second, I feel like anyone would have the common sense to not first head into the city so close to nightfall; especially considerin' that you haven't made contact with him just yet to give him a proper heads up. If he's on his way there, he and his son are takin' shelter somewhere tonight. First thing tomorrow, at first light, get on your walkie-talkie and warn him away. Make your way up onto a roof or something somewhere that's high enough so your walkie-talkie stands a better chance of reachin' him, wherever he is right now. If need be, tell him about the church we were at. Tell him to go there and we'll make our way back to meet up with him and his son."

Rick didn't verbalize it, but he was thankful; not just for Charlie being there to help further guide him through this new world, but to also help him think a bit straighter. She was like the angel on his shoulder, making sure he didn't fuck up and do something stupid or potentially fatal.

"Yeah, you're right."

"I know I am." Charlie smirked when he looked her in the eye.

His own smirk appearing upon his lips, Rick just nodded. "You're incredibly humble, too," he teased; his head tilting slightly.

With a small chuckle, Charlie nodded ahead of them. "Okay, so can we keep goin' already? I mean, I really don't want to have to sleep in some tree tonight if we can avoid it."

"Yeah," Rick nodded again. "Yeah, let's get out of these damn woods already."


Get out of the woods before nightfall they did not.

The sun was very near setting and it was getting much more difficult to see through the trees ahead of them when they found a tree about fifty feet to their left, amidst some brush, that had about three notably thick branches that seemed far enough off the ground. It would just be a matter of climbing said tree to attain that safe place for sleeping for the night.

With a look to each other, they wordlessly agreed that was their best bet at present and made their way over. A few other branches that stuck out but wouldn't be sturdy enough for their bodies looked to be at least sturdy enough to hook the bags with their supplies upon, which they did. Since it was easier for him to help her up onto the first branch instead of the other way around, Rick bent at the knees and cupped his hands together; allowing Charlie to place a foot into his hands and reach up for the first thick branch as he hoisted her up. Laying upon her stomach across the branch at first, she threw her hands out at her sides to grab onto whatever she could to pull herself up. Rick stepped back to let her get situated without any more of his help and turned his attention on getting up into the tree next by himself.

Putting his sights upon the branch that was perpendicular to Charlie's, but also a few inches higher up, Rick knitted his brow together and frowned. Reaching up, he gripped his branch with his left hand and gripped the bark of the tree trunk with his right hand. Hooking the heel of his boot into a slight divot in the trunk, Rick began his task. Thankful that, as a man, he was blessed with upper body strength, Rick was successful in pulling himself up. Twisting at the waist, however, his body turned and he draped himself across his branch, abdomen first; wincing in pain at how the hardness of the bark dug against where his injury was bandaged just underneath both shirts he wore. Rick grit his teeth and ignored the ache in favor for continuing to focus on pulling himself up so he could sit up the branch without falling down to the ground and having to do this all over again. Pushing up with his arms, which felt like wet noodles from carrying around bags of supplies all day, Rick got to his knees, braced the branch with both hands and then slowly let his right leg drop down to hang off the side. Coming down into a sitting position, wherein he straddled the branch happened less gracefully than he would've like in that it caused a sudden jolt of pain to his bits and baubles. Emitting a grunt of aching discomfort, Rick clenched his ass and moved around so he wasn't sitting on…himself. Upon releasing a slightly aggravated sigh, he finally leaned back against the trunk, which he placed his hands upon, above his head, as he lifted his feet up to place ahead of him on the branch where it began to split off into two smaller branches.

"You okay there, Tarzan?"

Rick tried his best not to be amused by her teasing. "Shut up."

Her response was simply to giggle under her breath.

"I can already tell that my ass is gonna go numb, and soon at that," he spoke further. "You good over there?"

"Better than you, clearly."

"I'm really wishing that tent from earlier had been empty. Actually, I think I could've lived with the smell. We could've just breathed through our mouths, left the flap open a bit to get some fresh air in."

"Coulda, shoulda, woulda."

"Let's never sleep in a tree again," he continued, shifting around again to get comfortable.

"We've only been up this tree, like, not even five minutes. Grow a pair."

"I have a pair, thank you very much. I just sat on 'em trying to get up here. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm sterile now."

Charlie laughed a bit and then Rick could hear the rustling of a plastic bag from one of the smaller branches. Turning to look to his right, he could see she had a hand in one of the bags closest to her.

"You hungry?" she inquired, pulling out the bag of Fritos from earlier that day.

"Yeah, actually." Reaching his left hand out, Rick accepted the bag from her after she'd cupped out a handful of the corn chips for herself to eat.

"Want a bottle of water, too?"

"Probably best we share, to conserve what we have, just in case."

"Okay."

Shuffling through another bag, a little further away which made it more awkward for her, Charlie grabbed an unopened bottle of water and twisted off the cap. After a few swigs, she wiped the rim with the sleeve of her jacket and then passed it on to Rick.

After taking a decent chug of the water, Rick leaned back against the trunk, popped a chip into his mouth and stared straight ahead into the darkening woods that surrounded them on all sides. It was still warm out, and the chorus of lovesick male cicadas that had been echoing in the air all day for their female counterparts was starting to fade, just like the last slivers of sunlight. The pair in the tree fell silent. The only noise they produced was the sounds of the Frito bag crinkling when they stuck their hands in and pulled out a few more of the chips and then proceeded with thee crunching noise that came with chewing. Leaving a third of the chips untouched so they had something to eat in the morning, so they could make what food supply they had last longer, Charlie rolled up the Frito bag and returned it to the plastic bag she'd acquired it from.

Rick and Charlie sat in silence a bit longer until they were sitting in complete darkness. They had that Coleman lantern, which hung from a branch like the other bags, including Rick's duffel bag, but there was no need for the lantern. They had nothing they needed to shed any light upon. All that was left at this point was to get some sleep. Somehow they would find rest up in that tree before continuing on their journey come first light.

"You asleep yet?" Rick asked quietly, folding his arms across his chest after tipping his hat own over his face.

"Hardly." Then, "Goodnight, though."

Rick smirked. "Goodnight."


Somehow, during the night, neither of them fell out of the tree. It was like their subconscious was astutely aware of where their bodies were positioned all while their minds were plenty occupied by the task of sleep and its accompanying dreams. Not even the rolling of their heads or occasional jumping in their sleeping from that feeling of falling was enough to make them actually fall. They woke a few times, mostly due to the discomfort of where they were, blinking and wiping away the crust or discharge that formed in the corners of their eyes and then falling quite easily back to sleep.

It was Rick who woke up first again the following morning.

It wasn't any sunlight that did it, but the distant chirping of birds.

Lifting his head, he took his hat off and set it in his lap as he jerked slightly out of fear when he sensed he wasn't in a bed; having forgotten where he was. His suddenly quickened heartbeat returned to a normal pace just as quickly when he realized he was fine. Looking around, he saw Charlie was still asleep, with her jacket tucked behind her head. Rick figured she must of taken it off at some point during the night and then balled it up to use as some sort of pillow. He frowned, wishing he would've thought to do the same or at least removed his own jacket from his duffel bag and worn it because the temperature had gone down during the night with the absence of sun. He had been made aware of that each time he woke up and felt that slight shiver and had done nothing about it other than "suck it up and deal."

It wasn't too cold now though.

Though the sun wasn't exactly up yet, at least not fully, it was already light enough that he could see better through the trees and could tell the temperature was slowly rising as well.

Letting out a small sigh, Rick pulled his legs up toward his chest and carefully pivoted on his branch, which he held onto while letting his legs dangle down. With a slight grunt, he pushed himself off and jumped own to the ground; emitting a groan from thee ache the jump down caused in his knees. Spring chicken he was not. He took a moment and hunched forward; gripping his knees and rubbing them a bit. Once he stood up straight, he tilted his head from side to side to crack his neck and then proceeded to crack any joint that had stiffened up on him while he slept. Looking up into the tree and seeing that Charlie hadn't stirred yet, he was careful to be quiet. Just because he was awake didn't mean he had to disturb her sleep.

Instead he quietly set his hat up upon the branch he'd spent the night on and then began to dig through his duffel bag, just as quietly, for his walkie-talkie. Grabbing hold of it, he clipped it to his utility belt and then looked around again.

Mother nature was calling and he didn't want to take care of things anywhere that Charlie might catch a glimpse of him in should she wake up while he was in the midst of said things. Walking off a few feet, he slipped behind another tree and relieved himself, swatting at a fly or whatever bug had buzzed by his ear. When he finished up, he looked around the tree and saw Charlie was still asleep. So, Rick continued further away with the intention of being out of Charlie's earshot so he could make that call out to Morgan with the walkie-talkie.

With the sun starting to stretch further above the horizon, Rick was able to see more through the trees than neither he nor Charlie had been able to see the night before when they'd reached the tree they'd chosen to sleep up in. He was able to see something that made him both frustrated and comforted at the same time.

Walking approximately two hundred feet, give or take, Rick stepped up to the edge of the woods and slipped out from within the trees with a smile upon his face and his hands upon his hips. Free from the canopy of trees, the early morning sun was able to properly bathe over him, causing him to smile just as brightly upward toward the sky and then laugh a little under his breath at how ridiculous this was.

Had they walked extra two hundred or so feet the night before, they would've come to this clearing and slept hidden away in the tall grass, so long as no snakes came slithering up and bit them at any point.

Looking around, Rick peered forward and narrowed his gaze. Bringing a hand up over his eyes to shield them from the sun so he could see better, Rick let out another laugh and shook his head at what he was seeing. Seemingly forgetting about the call he'd been planning to make to Morgan, Rick turned around and headed back into the woods and made a beeline straight for Charlie in the tree.

Upon reaching her, Rick lifted a hand up and patted her foot; giving it a slight shake to wake her up.

Not surprisingly, Charlie jerked awake, startled by his gesture and very nearly fell out of the tree. She caught herself though but leaning forward and gripping onto her branch before practically glaring daggers down at him.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he replied, smirking up at her. "Just get down from there and let's grab our shit. There's something you gotta see."

Shooing off his assistance, Charlie jumped down from the tree and her balled up jacket had fallen with her. Crouching forward to pick it up, she gave it a shake and then pulled it on before helping Rick grab their bags of supplies from thee other branches they were hanging from. Saddled down with their belongings as they had been the night before, Rick took lead so he could show Charlie the way.

"What do I have to see?" she wondered, walking in step behind him.

"Just wait."

After those two hundred or so feet, Charlie realized they were stepping out into a clearing. Letting her shoulders slump in slight defeat, she took in where they were, looked over her shoulder toward where they'd just come from and then back to the clearing.

"Are you fuckin' kiddin' me?" she whined. "We were this close to escapin' those fuckin' woods this entire time? Dear lord, if that ain't some shit."

Rick chuckled and nodded. "That ain't it." Turning from her, he pointed straight across the clearing, watching as she followed his gaze.

Narrowing her eyes to see, Charlie realized what they were both looking at.

A large white farmhouse.