Ann looked over and saw Carl toting a rolled up cloth. She followed her nephew and he eagerly showed Lori and Shane what he found.
"Mom! Shane look what I found! It's a complete arsenal!" The kid rolled out the cloth and Ann's eyes widened at the blades that the cloth hid. Carl grabbed up the hatchet eagerly and showed it to Shane.
"Whoa there Keemo-Sabe!" Ann warned her nephew as he almost whacked into her body when she walked by. "Careful with that stuff, it's not a toy!" She shared an exasperated look with Lori.
"That's good kid, go give them to Dale." Shane didn't even bother looking at him. Ann gave Shane a look of surprise.
"Can I keep one?" Carl asked his mom and she gave him an incredulous look. Even Ann snickered in sarcasm.
"Are you crazy?" Lori asked her son as Ann stated beside her.
"Hell no ya can't!" Lori looked over Ann and she put her hands up in surrender. "Right sorry, your kid your parenting…got it" Ann walked closer to Shane to see if he needed any water because it was getting hot again.
"Shane tell her to let me keep one!" Carl whined to Shane who shook his head in irritation.
"No! I said go give them all to Dale. NOW GO!" He snapped at the kid who frowned sadly and walked away with the cutlery.
"What was that?" Lori asked angrily to Shane while Ann shoved the car hood down making them look at her.
"Oh that's it! I've had it with this damn soap opera ya three got going on! Ya need to talk to Rick or when this thing comes out in the open we are all going to be caught in the damn crossfire! Do you really want to do that to that kid?" Ann shook her head angrily and stomped off grumbling. "I'm surrounded by five year olds!"
Daryl and Rick moved quietly through the woods until they heard shuffling footsteps. They stopped and crouched down to see what it was. Sure enough it was a dang Walker. Rick motioned for Daryl to go around the back of the Walker. He ran ahead and stopped in front of the Walker and whistled. The zombie looked over at growled at Rick and Daryl took one arrow and managed to embed it into the thing's head.
"Ya know, you are mighty handy with that there crossbow." Rick admitted with a smirk and Daryl tipped his crossbow to his forehead in thanks.
The two of them walked over to the fallen zombie and looked at it. Daryl snatched back his arrow and wiped it on his pant leg.
"Sophia!" He called but didn't hear anything. Daryl looked down at Rick who was examining the corpse. "What are you looking for?" Rick put on some gloves making Daryl a little nervous as to what Sheriff Idiot was considering.
"It's fed recently." Rick pried open the jaw and pulled something out. "Something caught in its teeth."
Daryl looked like he was getting a little green around the gills at what that could mean.
"Only one way to know for sure…" Rick admitted and pulled out his knife. Daryl's eyes widened slightly then gave him a dubious look unsure for a second then shook his head and pulled out his own gloves and knife.
"Here I'll do it, I've gutted enough things to have experience…" Daryl stopped him and went to work. It took a couple tries but Daryl finally managed to crack open the body. Well it was kind of hard to do seeing as Rigor Mortis had sent in quite some time ago. "Now for the bad part." Daryl muttered and reached into the body and started taking out organs that were in the way. He just tossed them off to the side making Rick look like he was very close to either passing out or vomiting. Hell maybe even both and not in that order. "You act like you've never been involved in a gutting before…" Daryl teased his brother-in-law.
"Not like this…" Rick offered swallowing convulsively.
"True enough…" Daryl agreed and finally procured the stomach. "Yeah Hoss had a big meal not long ago, I feel it in there…" He saw Rick break away for a second before upchucking.
"Ye did that on purpose didn't ye?" He came back after wiping his mouth making Daryl smirk.
Daryl opened up the stomach and nudged his knife around until he found something inside.
"Huh looks like he had himself a nice woodchuck for lunch…"
"Well thank GOD for that…" Rick sighed and Daryl nodded. "At least we know…"
"Yep at least we know…"
Ann stood around watching the evening sky turn different colors signaling that the night was fast approaching. She felt the night air blast through and she shuddered slightly. She held her arms across her upper body worrying about Daryl, Rick and Sophia.
Ann walked over and leaned against the wall of the RV just letting the nature sounds lull her into false security. She heard Andrea approach Dale and thus started another debacle.
"Where's my gun?" Andrea asked calmly. "You have no right to take it."
"You don't need that just right now do you?" Dale asked worriedly.
"My father gave it to me. It's mine…"
"I'm just holding on to it for you…" Dale was trying to stay calm but Ann could hear another argument in the works. Of course here comes Shane to 'fix' everything.
"Everything cool here?" He asked.
"No I want my gun back."
"I just…" Dale offered nervously.
"Well I told everybody to give all weapons to Dale…" Shane explained.
"You turning in your gun?" Andrea challenged angrily.
"Nope, I'm trained. Misuse of a gun could get somebody hurt or killed." Shane offered calmly.
Glen approached with some more supplies while Andrea stalked off.
"Hey they're back." He nodded his head.
Ann looked down the way and saw Rick and Daryl. She was very relieved that they were back, but still upset because she didn't Sophia with them. She made her way over to the group to listen and stepped over the guard rail to hug Daryl who looked a bit distressed.
"You okay?" She asked quietly, and he shook his head quietly.
"Aw it's nothing…."
"You didn't find her?" Kim asked heartbroken.
"The trail went cold." Rick informed her trying not to get killed by an angry mommy.
"It's getting dark, and you're just going to leave her out in the woods?" Kim started getting antsy and Rick braced for the angry words.
"Looking in the dark is useless, we'd just be tripping all over ourselves. More people could get lost." Daryl offered sadly and looked over at Ann who lightly touched his shoulder.
"She's just 12 she can't be left out in dark by herself!" Kim was starting to get on Ann's nerves and from the bickering between Shane/Lori, Dale/Andrea, and now Kim she was going to snap soon and it was not going to be pretty. "Is that blood?" Kim asked Daryl and Ann snapped around to look and gave Daryl a worried look.
"We took down a Walker but Sophia wasn't anywhere near him." Rick tried to calm the woman.
"How could you know that?" Ann asked not sure if she wanted to hear this.
"We cut the sumbitch open, we made sure." Daryl admitted and well if that didn't lead to an awkward silence among survivors then nothing will!
"Hope to GOD ya'll gloved up! OR else ye ain't touching me at all tonight." Ann warned Daryl who turned a bit red in the cheeks before Rick clearing his throat shut them up again.
Kim sat down on the guard rail with Lori and she gave Rick a sorrowful look.
"How could you just leave her out there…How could you just leave her?" Kim accused Rick who looked ashamed and Ann felt the final thread holding her Grimes temper in check stretch and finally snap apart.
Ann's eyes narrowed dangerously and she started for the woman being comforted by Lori.
"Aw hell no! You did NOT just say that to mah brotha!" She hissed out angrily and stalked forward seeing Rick's face fall at the anger that Kim has bestowed upon him. "Oh bitch you betta hope I don't git a hold of you!" She growled venomously as Shane used one arm to pick her up off the ground.
"Careful there darlin'!" Shane warned her but she tried to twist out of his grip.
"Yeah I know yer scared about Sophia but you don't git to say that about mah family and expect to git away with it!" Ann snapped out acidly. "Shane I swear ta GOD if ye don't get your arm off of me I will rip it off and bitch slap ya with it!" Ann gave Shane a look of pure fury.
"Ann ya need ta calm down!" Shane offered but got an elbow into his ribs for his trouble. He grunted in pain and let Ann go.
"AH AM SO SICK AND TIRED OF YOU IDIOTS THINKING THAT YA'LL CAN JUST GO AROUND AND YELL AT EACH OTHER WHENEVER YA FUCKING SEE FIT! And you…!" Ann pointed to Andrea enraged. "IF YOU WANT TO DIE SO MUCH THEN ALLOW ME TO JUST GRAB A GUN AND DO IT MYSELF! JUST SO WE CAN GET RID OF YER FUCKING WHINING! EVERYTHING SINGLE ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO GROW THE HELL UP! WE'RE AT THE END OF THE DAMN WORLD AND ALL OF YA'LL ARE JUST WASTING TIME PISSING AND MOANING ABOUT THIS AND THAT! I AM OUTTA HERE!" Ann stormed off and as Daryl tried to lay his she snapped around and shoved his hand off angrily. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" She growled and stalked down the road and started to kick in the side of the one of the many cars abandoned on the road.
Glen blinked in surprise and nobody was talking until he said muttered.
"Damn…." He grumbled while everybody dispersed for the night.