Chapter 4

The coolness of night engulfs the forest. Dark trees passing by. Footsteps close behind me. My heart is in my throat. Sweat pouring off my face. A tree comes into view. I quickly climb its branches and steady myself above the ground. Down below I see my mother running through the fog.

"Mother up here!" I call out, but she can't hear me. "Mother!" She looks around her and heads in a different direction. "No!" Next comes Emily. She stands at the base of the tree. "Emily!" She looks up at me, but she just slides down to the ground. She has tears bursting from her eyes. "Emily, come up here!" I hold down my hand to her, but I'm too far away. Thats when I realize, she isn't looking at me, she's looking past me. She can't see or hear me.

In the distance I see a figure appear. It walks slowly towards us. It steps into the bright moonlight. "DAD!" I cry. "Dad, please! Please dad." I sob. He looks down at Emily and hurries to her and bends down. What I thought was a hug was actually the bite of a hungry monster. He bit into Emily's neck, ripping off her flesh. She looked up towards me screaming.

"Lucy!" she howled as she cried. Now I wasn't sure if she could see me or not. Blood poured from her opened wound, as what used to be my father took another bite from my sister. I cradled myself in the tree.

I looked back down, a few moments later. Now my mother was there with my father, devouring my little sister, their child. In unison, they all looked up at me, and I was sure they could see me. All their eyes were flaming red. "Lucy, you did this to us." they all said. I slowly shook my head, no.

"No, no I couldn't have." I whispered.

"Lucy, don't you love us?" Emily's voice came out of the monster below me.

"Oh Emily." I cried. They held their hands up to me, but I just climbed higher. "No. NO!"

I sat straight up, sweating and out of breath. The furry mass on my legs picked its head up and I buried my face into its soft, familiar neck. "Lucic, I didn't do it. I didn't." I said into his fur. Remembering that I wasn't in my own tent, I quickly sat up. I looked over at the empty bed next to me and gave a sigh of relief. He hadn't see my little brake down. Good thing. The last thing I needed was the one guy I actually felt something for seeing my weaker side already. I changed, put my horrid looking hair up, and put my knife around my waist then unzipped the tent, letting myself and Lucic out. I carefully walked over to the RV with Lucic at my side trying to keep as much weight off my ankle as possible. It felt better but I didn't want to take any chances.

The kids were sitting around the fire pit with Lori and Carol, each with their own plate of untouched breakfast, then looked over to Andrea, who was still sitting over Amy's body. I went up to Dale who was just coming down from the ladder of the RV.

"Oh Lucy, hows the ankle?" he asked.

"It's better, has she been there all night?" I pointed over to Andrea.

"Yeah, I'm worried about her." he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Won't Amy change soon?"

"I don't know, but we need to get her away from Amy. We are burning and burying the bodies." he pointed to a pile of burning walkers. T-Dog helped Glenn put more bodies on the pile. Dale and I walked over to Rick, Shane and Lori and sat down.

"She won't move?" Rick asked, still covered in blood from the night before.

"Won't even talk to us." Lori said. "She's been there all night, what do we do?"

"Can't just leave Amy like that. We need to deal with it, same as the others." Shane said sitting on a tree stump.

"I'll tell her how it is." Rick went over to Andrea. Right when he said her name, she pulled out her gun and pointed it at his face. "Okay, I'm sorry." he said slowly backing up, until she turned back down to Amy.

Daryl walked over to us with a bloody pick-ax slung over his shoulder. "Y'all can't be serious. Let that girl hamstring us? The dead girl's a time bomb."

"I agree with Daryl. We need to take care of Amy soon, she can't stay like that for much longer." I said, getting up and walking to them.

"What do you suggest?" Rick asked.

"Take the shot." Daryl said.

"No, for God sakes, let her be." Lori was disgusted. Rick and Shane exchanged looks, and Daryl was off to help Morales burn more walkers. He was pulling a body towards the wrong pile and Glenn yelled at him about not burning our people. He to moved it to the other pile and yelled, "Y'all left my brother for dead! You had this coming!" then stormed off. I debated in my head whether or not to go after him, but he was already in a bad mood and he most likely just wanted to be alone.

"A walker got him! A walker bit Jim." Jacqui broke the silence. We all circled him, even Daryl ran back, telling Jim to show his wound.

He picked up a shovel aggressively and T-Dog grabbed him from behind, restraining him. "I'm okay. I'm okay." he repeated over and over again. Daryl ran over and lifted Jim's shirt, revealing a rather large bite in his side. We all just stared at him, not sure of what to do.

Jim sat on a crate next to the RV while the rest of us grouped together to decide his fate. "I say we put a pick-ax in his head and the dead girl's be done with it." Daryl automatically suggested.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane asked, fed up with Daryl.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it."

"I hate to say it- I never thought I would- but maybe Daryl's right." Dale said.

"Jim isn't a monster." Rick replied.

"I'm not suggesting-"

"He's a sick sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"The line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be." Daryl said.

"I've seen this before. He's just going to get really sick and be in a lot of pain." I said. Everyone already knew his final fate, but until then, no one was sure.

"What if we can get him help?" Rick asked me.

"Help from where? As far as I know, there isn't a cure."

"I heard the C.D.C. was working on one."

"I heard that too." Shane said. "That and a lot of things before the world went to hell."

"What if it's still up and running?" Rick didn't want to kill this man, and he was going to anything to keep it that way. He tried to explain to us how it would be a good shot at finding people and safety. He said that people would still be working there but Shane didn't want to take the risk. Shane said that people would be at Fort Benning, 100 miles in the opposite direction, away from the cities. But Rick still said that the CDC was a better shot for them and Jim.

Daryl still thought they just needed to kill Jim and get it over with. He picked up the ax and ran towards Jim. "Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!" he yelled, but right before he could hurt Jim, Rick cocked his gun and put it to Daryl's head.

"We don't kill the living." he said to Daryl.

"That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head."

Shane told Daryl to put the ax down, and once again Daryl stormed off. Rick got Jim to his feet and took him somewhere safe. This time I went after Daryl. He was slamming his ax into the heads of the bodies from our group lined up on the other side of the RV. When he stood up and looked at me, almost looking surprised that I was there.

"What do you want?" he asked rudely.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I don't need you looking after me like you're my mother." he barked.

"I didn't plan on it."

"Then what do you want?" he heaved all his weight onto the ax into another of the body's skull.

"Look, Jim won't last much longer. He'll be lucky if he makes it through the night. His body is going to completely shut down in the next 24 hours. He is going to be in the most horrid pain until his heart gives out. When Rick sees him suffering, they will take care of him."

He stood back up, surprised, "Why do you know this?"

"I watched it happen before." I said looking at the ground. I quickly pushed the thought out of my head and looked up at him. He was looking right at me. "You got a little blood, right there." I said pointing to his left cheek. He whipped it off with the back of his hand then went back to beating in skulls when Carol walked over. I hadn't recognized right away, but the next body to be done was Ed's.

"I'll do it. He's my husband." she said sobbing a little. Daryl handed her the ax and stepped back. She looked down at what was left of her husband before throwing all her weight into his head. Again and again she pierced his head with the blade. It almost looked as if she was getting all her frustrations out along with it. After a few more times, she sobbed some more and handed the ax back to Daryl. I hugged her then walked her back to the fire pit and sat with her and Dale.

After a little while went by, I started to hear a growling noise. I looked over to Andrea and Amy. Amy was starting to sit up and Andrea was still holding her. "Uhh Dale?" He looked over at me and I pointed to Amy. Rick and Shane started to hear it too and walked towards them with their guns out, but Andrea shot Amy in the head before any damage was done. I helped Dale, Glenn, Carol, Morales, and Daryl wrap the bodies in sheets and the men loaded them into Daryl's truck.

We followed the truck up the hill to where Jim had been digging the day before and started to unload the bodies into the graves.

Everyone stood back except Dale who tried to help Andrea get Amy's body into a grave, but every time he'd try to touch the body, Andrea would say, "I can do it."

Once all the bodies were in the ground, Morales said a little family prayer in Spanish as well as one in English. All the women tried to hold back tears, but it seemed to be a lost cause. A few slipped out all over the open field. Even from my eyes. I had lost friends and that was a worse pain then my ankle had been.

When we got back, everyone did their own thing for a while and then we all met up at the fire pit, when Shane, Rick, and Dale got back from their rounds. Shane told us about how he thought about Rick's plan and that he now agreed with it. He talked about how important it was for us to stay together and that we would leave in the morning for the C.D.C.

I wasn't sure I liked this plan. For one, I had yet to find Paille, and if I did, I didn't know how I was going to get him to the C.D.C. or where I would put him when we got there. Two, I didn't want to be anywhere near the cities, not anymore. And three, their was no way of knowing for sure there would be people still there. If there wasn't, it was going to be an even longer trip to Fort Benning, especially on a small amount of fuel.

Carol and Lori went to start dinner as the sun was setting. Andrea and I both needed showers. I hadn't taken a shower in days and now I had a chance. I went into my bag and pulled out my bar of soap and another bar of shampoo, which I shared with Andrea. She and I both got cleaned up and changed. It felt so good to wash off the dirt and blood from the day. Never had I loved a shower as much as I did then. I went into my tent and finally brushed out my hair. For once it felt clean and looked good.

When the sun was gone we gathered around the fire for a very small dinner, which everyone gobbled down. Dinner was very quiet and uncomfortable, and when it was over I left as soon as possible. I went to find Jacqui, who had been watching over Jim most of the day. She was very depressed so I just said goodnight to her and went to my tent for the night. Once again, Daryl had already beaten me to the tent. I had been wearing my sleeping clothing since the shower, so he didn't need to leave to change, which was a relief.

Daryl was just laying in his bed looking up at the tent when I came in. I sat in my bed and took off my knife and boots. "What do you think about leaving tomorrow?" I ask him.

"I don't really think we have another option." he said. "You?" he asked after a long pause.

"I don't really like it. I thought about not going." He sat up and looked over at me.

"Where would you go?" he asked. "There are walkers crawling all over these woods. If you got surrounded, they would kill you." He sounded like he was getting upset, and very concerned.

"I thought you told me not to act like your mother." I teased.

"You wouldn't last on your own. If it wasn't for me last night, you would have been eaten." he said, trying to sound angry to cover up the fear in his voice.

"Last night?" That's when I remembered, it was him that had saved me.

"You couldn't even walk last night." He had carried me through the camp filled with walkers.

"Daryl, how did Lucic get in the tent this morning?"

"What?" he asked annoyed.

"When I woke up he was on my legs."

"He must'a snuck past me when I left."

"Yeah, sure." I smiled.

"You callin' me a liar?" he asked, getting all defensive.

"Maybe I am." I laughed. "Goodnight Daryl." I said pulling the blankets over myself. "And thanks."

"What for this time?" he tiredly sighed.

"For saving me." I looked into his brilliant blue eyes and put a hand on his knee, then rolled over, facing away from him. Before I rolled over, I thought I saw a little blush come across his face. He was sweet. It may have been hard for people to see the real Daryl, but it was defiantly there. "Yeah," he whispered before turning off the lantern. I smiled into my blanket. Okay, I really liked him, more then I thought I did.