Hey look a third chapter.

I want to say thank you to those of you who have stuck through this and kept reading. I am back in my composition class now that winter break is over and it is inspiring me a bit more than I was originally. Like I said it has been a long time since I have written anything. So thank you! 3

It was the third day of them being there. The sun was bright and the sky was a clear blue. Most people before finding live people became difficult, would say that it would be nearly impossible to be sad on such a beautiful day, but Beth was slowly losing hope of ever seeing her sister and friends again. After her breakdown she decided to listen to what Daryl had said; that her sister and Glen WERE strong enough to make it out of there. They could be pulling up any second inside that old beat up safety bus with the rest of the group. But today she didn't feel that way. She didn't look towards the entrance of the Storage area, hoping to see a gang of armed familiar faces walking up with a smile of relief. She didn't break the silence between her and Daryl and ask him where he thought they were. She had given up, and was ready to push the sadness out of her mind and find a safer place to reside, or so she tried. The second day they decided to go outside the storage area to see what exactly was around them. Unfortunately the only thing they found were walkers, slowly but surely staggering toward the storage unit. The farther they went out the most the realized that the storage unit wasn't going to be safe for very much longer. Walkers were beginning to come of hiding, at first it was only one or two, but then it became 10, and finally there were so many walkers that Beth and Daryl had to hide just so they wouldn't become dinner for the undead. So when the sun rose on the third day they decided they were going to pack everything they needed and get the hell out of there.

Coming to the storage unit wasn't an entire waste of time; they found a lot of useful things that they were able to take with them. They were even able to find some old left over gas in the main garage of the business, along with a working business car. "Hit the squirrel on the head." As Daryl said when they stumbled across the old transportation van. They had moved the van closer to their unit, opening the back door to the vehicle, allowing them to pack as much stuff in it as they needed. To their advantage one of the units they had opened up must of belonged to an old hunter, because it was filled with survival gear; knives, guns, pots and pans for fires, sleeping bags, a camo tent with 4 sectioned off rooms, building tools, and just about anything else you could think of, the only down part is that none of the guns had ammo. Luckily enough there were other units with ammo in them, just no guns of any sort. The spent the day gathering anything else they could, and packing all their bags in the car. The time, if they were to have a watch, would have said that it was about 5:12pm. The sun would be setting soon, and they needed to get a move on if they wanted to avoid the slow approaching herd that was heading toward them.

Daryl was finishing adjusting the bags in the back so he would be able to fit anything else if necessary. "You bout ready?" he shouted to Beth, but not turning away from the van. He waited for a few minutes and heard no response. "Be-"he stopped as he turned around, only to be pushed against the back of the van by a very quiet walker. Using one hand to keep the monster from digging his disgusting rotted teeth into his flesh, he reached into the back of his ripped jeans for his switch blade. Feeling the sweet metal in his hand he pulled it out as fast as he could, pulling the zombies head back by its matted hair, he thrusted the knife into his head from the bottom of his chin. Pushing the zombie out of the way he darted inside toward the entrance of the unit him and Beth were sharing. There was no sign of her. He darted back out and looked right toward the car, and just as he was about to look left he heard a scream.

"BETH!" He shouted to the air looking above the units, as he turned to his left he noticed 3 walkers coming his direction from around the corner of the storage container, 5 units down.

"DARYL!" he heard her, and it sounded as though she was a ways in front of him. Darting the opposite way of the walkers he ran to where he thought he heard Beth scream.

"BETH!" he shouted again, in a different isle of containers, turning around in all directions as if he would hear where she was coming from better. Walkers were coming from different corners of units in front of him; he was guessing that direction was toward the entrance. They must have underestimated the speed of the walkers; they weren't expecting them to be here until the evening of the next day. Something musta got them excited. Daryl thought

"BETH!" He shouted again, backing away from the direction of the geeks.

"DARYL!" he hears her again, only this time she sounded right around the corner. He ran a few more units down and turned left around a corner. Coming to the next isle he looked both ways, deciding which one would take him to Beth. He heard what sounded like a body drop to his right, so he headed that way only to find an open storage container. Inside was Beth, holding a knife with both hands and covered in blood which must have belonged to the walker on the ground.

"We gotta go." Daryl grabbed her hand and sprinted out of the unit. They dodged a walker in a gas station uniform just in time. The storage area was like a giant maze. Unit after unit, row after row, isle after isle, they began to run to where they thought was the main garage in the back of the building. Reaching the door to the office that was attached to the garage, Daryl and Beth ran inside. Daryl slammed the door shut and began shoving Items in the room in front of it, from fallen book shelves to the old desk and chair.

Barricaded in the abandon room, Daryl and Beth began to collect their thoughts as the dead banged and rattled the room from outside.

"We have to find a way out of here!" Beth shouted in terror as she frantically looked around the room for something that could possibly help them survive.

They were running out of time. The makeshift blockage wasn't a very good match for the 30 rotted corpses pushing against the door, desire for flesh their only motivation.

"Over here!" Daryl shouted, noticing a door hidden behind a separate filing cabinet. Just as he swung the door open and allowed Beth to go through the barricade began to slide away from the door, dead arms of the vicious dead began to feel their way inside. Swinging the door shut behind them they began to let their eyes adjust to the new surroundings. The door had lead to the garage, which they had already taken everything they thought they needed out of it the previous day.

Daryl noticed a little light coming through a piece of cloth hanging on the wall on the opposite side of the room. He rushed over there and hopped onto the built in shelf that it was above. Pulling down the cloth he had found a window. The sun outside was slowly disappearing under the trees of the horizon. He attempted to open it but unfortunately it did not open. Looking around the room for something he could use, he saw a wrench hidden underneath a stack of old news papers on the bottom of a work bench Beth was frantically in the process of pulling in front of the door.

"AYE! Toss me that wrench under there!" Daryl motioned to the stack of newspapers. Beth gave the bench one last good pull and retrieved the wrench and threw it to Daryl.

Smashing the window within seconds of catching the wrench, he tossed it outside for future use. Lifting up Beth and helping her through the window, he heard the sound of scraping behind him. The walkers must have already gotten through the first door, now they were beginning to make their way into the garage. Dead hands were beginning to make their way through the small crack, causing the flesh to rip off their fragile bones.

"Daryl hurry!" Beth shouted from outside the window, as she stared down 3 walkers coming around the corner from outside the storage unit. Her knife was at the ready, but her mind was not sure what she was going to do. Daryl jumped down from the window panel, grabbing the wrench he threw. All he wanted was his bow, but due to the sudden ambush he was left with nothing.

Beth and Daryl were now trapped in a dead end. Because the main garage was in the back, there was no way to go past it; they were at the edge of the once protected area with three hungry walkers backing them into the fence.

"What're we gonna do?" Beth panicked, looking for Daryl for the answer. The walkers staggered toward them; leaving them only just a few meters from the fence.

"There's only three of 'em" Daryl said, readying his wrench. "We can take em out no problem." But he had spoken too soon. There were three more walkers coming around the same corner as the previous ones. "We gotta do this now" Daryl said, and with that he kicked the closest walker back, and brought his wrench down on the second walker to the right of him. Beth, to his left, let the third walker get a little close to her until she was comfortable with stabbing him through the neck to the head, him dropping to the ground after letting out on last growl. The walker Daryl had kicked was making her way back, dirty powder pink dress dragging on the ground, a look of angry hunger in her old color drained eyes. He took her out with ease as the three other walkers began to get closer and closer. Beth and Daryl did not realize that they had made it all the way to the fence, so there was no more room for them to get away. Daryl managed to take out two of them while Beth took out the sixth. Catching their breath, they started to walk out of the dead end they were trapped in, but the walkers from inside the garage must have heard the commotion, causing them to also come around the corner where the survivors were. Daryl and Beth stopped dead in their tracks. They were not prepared for this. They were too under armed. They were too out of breath from the unexpected attack. Beth didn't know if they were going to make it, and Daryl was beginning to have his doubts.

They prepared themselves, taking a deep breath and readying their weapons. The walkers; growling and limping toward them slowly, ready to dig their rotting teeth into the living flesh. Daryl strikes the first walker, taking him down with one hit. Unfortunately while Daryl was doing that, Beth was also in the process of taking out a walker, leaving Daryls back uncovered. A walker came up behind him just as he was finishing his last walker. He was grabbed by the arm and pushed to the ground, his back up against the storage unit across from the window they had escape out of. Using the flat side of the wrench, Daryl shoved it in the walkers mouth to avoid getting bit by pushing it away. The walker, mouth full of metal, was chomping furiously, his hands having a strong grip on Daryl vest.

PHEW!

The walker attached to Daryls vest was dead, falling to the side and loosening its grip on Daryls vest. A Sword went through another walker. It was Carl and Michonne. Carl ran to Beth and helped her with the walker that was coming toward her and Michonne grabbed Daryl and helped him up.

"We have to go. Now. " Running out of the corner they were trapped in for a while, they saw that the rest of the walkers that had broken down the doors were now coming back out due to the sound of the gun going off.

"Wait!, this way!" Daryl did not want to leave without getting the van they had stocked with so much useful equipment so he lead the group to where they were once camping, thinking that all the walkers should be down by the garage. He was right. Luckily enough there were only a few stragglers but Daryl was able to get into the van with ease, Carl slammed the back door of the van shut and Beth ran inside the unit they were staying in to grab the last box of supplies. Now with all of them in the car they sped to the entrance.

"Just down this road about 20 minutes is a car that Glenn and Maggie are waiting at. We didn't bring the bus down here because we ran into a herd of walkers. We parked it somewhere hidden about an hour from here. " Michonne said looking forward, clutching the car armrest.

The sun was gone now, A half moon hung high in the sky surrounded by speckles of tiny stars. The car was silent. They had been driving about 30 minutes now and had yet to come across Glenn and Maggie.

"So-what happen to you guys?" Beth asked curiously, looking into the front seat towards Michonne and glancing at Carl next to her.

"Dad and I left the prison on foot. He was in pretty bad shape." Carl started turning to Beth as he spoke. "We found an abandon house and took shelter there for a day. Started heading to the storage area when Michonne and the rest of them came behind us." He turned back, facing the front. "We still haven't found Tyreese or the girls, but they put Judith on the bus before they ran off again."

"After we found them we decided to still come see if you had made it to the safe spot. We had Maggie and Glenn stay back while we traveled to see if the coast was clear. Obviously it wasn't." Michonne said to Daryl.

'yeah well it's a good thing ya'll came when ya did." Daryl said back to her. "Don't think we woulda made it outa there."

"Why haven't we seen them yet." Michonne asked, more or less to herself. She sat up straight in her seat as Daryl began to slow down the car. "Something isn't right."

They continued forward. The street slowly turned into a dirt road as the approached what seemed to be a small town.

"We must have gone the wrong way." Michonne said shortly. You could see it in her eyes that she was ashamed at the fact that she may have told them to go the wrong way. "This doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe they ran into trouble, had to find safety." Carl said leaning forward to the middle console to see where the headlights were guiding them, his statement causing him to sound an awful lot like his father.

Daryl squinted his eyes to see a little bit farther than the lights would allow, he wanted to avoid turning the brights on just in case a pack of walkers were lurking somewhere close as they rolled into the abandon town.

"Hold up." Daryl killed the car and turned the lights off. They sat in confusion in the middle of the small town. Beth looked curiously out of her window and could make out what use to be a local movie theater across from her side of the car.

"What're we doi-" She started but was quickly silenced by Daryl with a quick "shh"

"listen." He whispered harshly.

The car went quiet. All ears were perked, listening to the silence of the darkness.

Just then the sound of grumbling was able to be heard. As though there were a pack of walkers trapped in one place, and very upset about it. They listened for a second to the sounds of the dead. You could hear them snapping their jaws, as though they were trying to bite something. Some of them were so rattled that they were growling and moaning constantly, as if yelling in anger. The sounds of the walkers were quickly over powered by the very unsettling sound a female scream. She sounded desperate and terrified, most of all she sounded alive.

It took the group about 10 seconds to realize what they had heard. Michonne looked at Daryl with shock in her eyes, as though trying to ask him what they should do even though she knew it was too dark for him to see them.

Frantically Beth practically screamed. "That could be Maggie! We have to go!" That was that. They got out of the car and opened the back of the van, quickly grabbing the flashlights they had previously packed. Daryl had, of course, grabbed his crossbow and armed himself with 10 arrows, preparing himself for what could be out there. Michonne had her Katana, and Carl and Beth armed themselves with sharpened knives, as well as loaded guns just in case they needed them.

"That don't sound too far from where we are now." Daryl said roughly after everyone had armed themselves and gathered behind the van. "I'd guess bout two blocks down that way." He pointed to the left of him. They glanced down the alley that was separating a drug store and an ice cream shop, leading into the back yards of small houses that were slowly being swallowed by wild vines and weeds. They kept close and quickly but consciously moved down the alley.

There was an old flakey white garage next to a small brown house about 2 ½ blocks down, just as Daryl had said, with about ten walkers banging on the wooden door as well as the automatic door, causing the shattering sound to echo throughout the town.

"ya'll ready?" Daryl questioned. He looked around to them and could see their heads nod in the moonlight.

They quietly approached the walkers, sneaking up without being heard. Daryl from a short range shot 3 walkers in a row with his bow. Luckily the other walkers were making enough noise to not be distracted at the sounds of corpses dropping. Michonne swiftly took the head off of two walkers who were a little farther back from the garage as Daryl retrieved his arrows and reloaded his crossbow with the already bloody arrows. Carl managed to sneak up behind a slow banging walker and stabbed straight through the side of his head. He could see Beth on the other side of the garage doing the same thing. The last walkers were taken out by Daryl as they all ran to the door of the garage, dragging the bodies out of the way. Michonne stood with her side to the door, hand on the handle, and her eyes on Daryl hoping to be able to see his signal in the moonlight. He nodded to her, picking up his last arrow and loading it into his bow. They prepared themselves for what could be in there.

Michonne knocked on the door, hoping that the girl who screamed was still inside.

"MAGGIE?!" Beth shouted through the door, but there continued to be silence on the other side.

"Back up." Daryl said as he stepped little bit away from the door. With force he then kicked the door open, causing whatever was blocking it shut to fall with a loud CRASH.

The Garage was still silent inside. They readied their flashlights and weapons and sprung into the room, ready for anything that could possibly pop out. They could hear soft whimpering coming from the center of the garage. Daryl and Michonne shined their flashlights in the direction of the soft crying.

There was a girl sitting on her knees in a pool of blood, clutching the body of a middle aged man. Her head was tilted down looking at the man, who was bleeding profusely out of his neck.

"Please!" she sobbed as her body was shaking, her eyes only glancing at the group. "Please! You have to help him!"