LoriAnn

Reaching up on her tiptoes, Lori pulled at a bunch of ripe berries and plopped them into her basket. They wore the baskets on their chests, attached with straps, kind of like a backwards backpack. That way you had both hands free to pick. Judith reached over and grabbed at her upper arm.

"Damn girl," she said, "you are getting buff as hell." Lori smiled. It was from all the blacksmithing. Rolland had taught her to switch her hands, that way both sides of her body got evenly muscled, and it was less strain on her shoulders. But there was no helping the fact that she was going to end up with manly upper arms. Since it didn't deter any of the men in this town from trying to talk to her, she figured they must not look too bad. Judith was up on her toes now, trying to reach a high branch. Rolland gripped her around the legs and lifted her up, making her squeal. "These berries aren't worth getting dropped head first into this bush," she told him.

"I would never drop you," he insisted, setting her gently down onto her feet. Lori watched them lean in a give each other a quick kiss before they went back to picking. They looked like a bit of an old couple at first glance. Judith was tall and slim and Rolland was shorter than her and very stocky. He had dark red hair and his body was covered in freckles, especially his face. Judith had long brown hair that she kept shaved on one side to show her scar. She liked to joke that it made her a member of the ugly scar club, the other members of course being Dixie's mom RickyJo, Lori's step grandmother Beth and Sarah's mom Kim. Jenny's brother Duane was sometimes included in this group, but not always since he was a man. RickyJo liked to tell him he didn't count since it was sexy for a man to have scars. Lori had a feeling she only said that to make him feel better. There was nothing sexy about his nasty eye hole.

Rolland reached over and snatched a handful of berries from Lori's basket, tossing them into his mouth. She swatted at him. They were never going to get their baskets full if he kept filling his mouth.

"New contest," he announced. The previous contest had of course been who can fill their basket first. "Eat as much as you can and whoever gets the blueberry shits first, wins." Now the girls were really laughing.

"I am not sleeping with you tonight," Judith told him. Even Lori knew that was a lie. The two of them had not spent a single night apart since the second week they got here. They were planning to get married at the summer meeting. And then Judith was going to be coming back here to Hilltop to live. Lori was a little sad about that. They were already family, since Judith was her dad's half sister, but since they came here, they had become close friends. It was going to be like losing a sister. But Lori couldn't be happier for her. She had never seen Judith smile so much. Not only was Rolland funny and nice, along with Mr. Sutton, who was getting ready to retire, he ran what was the only blacksmith shop in the region. Lori was going to be opening up the second one when she got back to Alexandria. People needed their weapons, and they had no problem trading him whatever he wanted for repairing them or making them new ones. He was going to be able to take good care of Judith.

Lori looked down into her basket, which was about three quarters of the way full. When she finished this one, she was going to take a break. She was wearing one of the big floppy straw hats everyone used to keep the sun off, but it was still hot. There were big coolers of ice water on the wagons. And she was ready for a cold drink. Continuing with her picking, Lori let her mind wander. Seeing Judith so happy was starting to make her think about finding someone to settle down with. She knew she was already older than her mom had been when she had her.

Lori tried not to think about her mom. She missed her so much it hurt inside. The first few weeks here, she had cried herself to sleep every night with Judith and Maria patting her back. Maria's dad had even offered to take her back home. But she had toughed it out. And now she was glad. When she went home, she was going to bring back something of worth. Having their own blacksmith was going to make a real difference for Alexandria. They wouldn't have to make do with substandard weapons, or travel to Hilltop and trade when they needed something fixed. She was going to be able to do all that for them. Lori knew her parents were going to be proud of her. She also knew it was technically her birthday soon, but she had special present she had made for each one of her parents, and another for her younger brother. They were all knives with carved bone handles. She had traded several blades to the man that carved the handles for her. Lori was good at making weapons, but she wasn't much of an artist.

"Done!," Lori announced. Her basket was finally full.

"Going for a water break?," Judith asked her. Lori nodded. "We will be over there in a minute." Judith knew she would have been done a long time ago if she had been picked more instead of playing around with Rolland. Lori headed down the row of bushes, several men smiling at her as they stepped back to let her pass. She dumped her basket into one of the larger bushel baskets and walked over to get a drink of water. There were three or four metal cups attached to the large cooler of water to keep people from walking off with them. Lori filled one to the top and gulped it down. Then she filled it again and sat down in the grass to sip it. A young man she knew was named Thomas came over and sat next to her.

"Don't mean to squeeze you," he said, "but these ropes are only so long." He pulled at the rope holding his cup to the wagon, making her laugh. "Cups that want to run away." She laughed again. "Bet you are excited to be going home soon," he said.

"I am, I miss my mom," Lori admitted. The boy smiled at her. That was a cute thing for her to say.

"I am going this year for the first time since I was little," Thomas told her proudly. "I can't wait to see the Alexandria Seven, I hope I get to meet one of them." Lori started laughing. "What's so funny?," he asked her. She stuck out her hand. He shook it, looking at her confused.

"You already have met one of them," she informed him. His eyes opened wide as he looked at her.

"You?," he asked. She nodded, finding it hard not to keep laughing.

"And Maria, the girl training to be a doctor," she said.

"No shit," Thomas said. He tried to let the idea sink in. "I heard you all had magic powers," he said. Lori looked like a regular girl to him. A little muscular from blacksmithing, but she didn't seem to have any magic powers. Her dirty blonde hair was in a ponytail and there was a smear of blueberry juice across her cheek. She had brown eyes with little flecks of gold in them. She also had a very pretty smile and a musical laugh.

"No," she said, "we all just had moms that got their hump on right before or right after they got to Alexandria." That made Thomas laugh.

"I also heard you were all super hot chicks," he said. Lori laughed again.

"There's one boy out of the seven, my Uncle Hershel," she said, "as for the hot part I guess you will have to be the judge of that." Thomas looked her up and down. Then he thought about the pretty girl that was Carson's apprentice. She had been up at his Uncle's farm a few days before, birthing goats. She had pale skin and jet black hair that was cut short so it fell just below her chin. That girl had big blue eyes too. And the girl next to him was no slouch. She had a different look from the doctor girl, more athletic and strong looking. But she was attractive just the same.

"So far I say that rumor is true," Thomas told her. She blushed a little. "One of them is your Uncle?"

"Yeah," Lori said, still smiling from his compliment, "my grandpa had him with his second wife, shes younger. And my parents were really young when they had me so my uncle is the same age as me." Alexandria was a mess of who was related to who. The funniest was Jenny, who had a half brother and half sister who were married to each other, Duane and Desiree. And Dixie, who had two dads and her mother was married to both of them. In fact, that whole family was one big hot hillbilly mess.

Then there was her family. Carl was her dad, so Judith was his sister, but she was more Lori's age. And Rick had all those kids with Beth, who were Carl's siblings but they were not related to Judith. And MJ's mom had nursed Judith when she was a baby, so she always said Judith was MJ's milk sister. Judith lived at their house like she was part of that family for most of her childhood. But she wasn't actually related to them. It really gave Lori a headache trying to figure it all out.

Thomas stood up and reached down to give Lori a hand up. Before she could thank him, she heard a loud commotion coming from one end of the field. Thomas noticed Lori got her gun out right away. It startled him, but he knew people from Alexandria were like that. But in this case, she was right. He got his knife out of the sheath and held it tightly in one hand. People were running in their direction, away from the noise. Lori dodged them, heading out to see if she could help. She didn't think these people would panic like this over a few walkers, but it was hard to tell. She caught up with Judith and Rolland, who were also heading for the noise instead of away from it. When they got closer, Lori could tell it was a woman screaming.

There was a small circle of people around. A woman Lori had never seen before was on the ground, clutching a very skiny child to her chest and screaming. Lori saw Maria's parents shoving in and was immediately relieved. Rosita knelt down and pried the woman's hands off the child so she could get a look at him. The woman was still screaming hysterically so Rosita pulled her hand back and slapped her hard across the face.

"Stop screaming," she told her firmly. Then she put her hand to the boy's neck and felt for a heartbeat. There was a faint one, and his breathing was shallow. He was hot. Way too hot. He had heatstroke and was severely dehydrated. And malnourished too, by the looks of him. Rosita spotted Lori in the crowd.

"Get some water now," she told her. Lori ran for the cooler. The cups were tied on but the cooler was only about half full now. She saw Rolland had followed her.

"Lets take the whole cooler," he said. She nodded and grabbed one side of it. He lifted the other and yelled for people to get out of their way. They made it back to the boy and his mother, who Lori had not noticed at first had a large pregnant stomach. Rosita revived the boy with the water, and made him sip it slowly. She also made sure his mother got a drink. Then the woman started moaning and holding her stomach.

"Shes going to have that damn baby right here if we don't get her the fuck back to town," Rosita cursed. Rolland did not wait, he knelt down and scooped the woman up into his arms. Rosita handed the boy to Lori. Then they all started booking it back to town. It was about a two mile walk, but it seemed like longer. Abraham and Judith were flanking them with their guns out. Lori saw the boy she had been talking to had followed along after them too, and he had his knife out. She guessed he was just trying to impress her, but she appreciated the help all the same. Rosita ran ahead to get the medical room ready and find Maria or Dr. Carson. She couldn't deliver the baby and take care of the boy by herself.

Lori could hear the woman saying all kinds of crazy things. Talking about walkers swarming over the walls of their camp and how she barely made it out alive. A man levatating in the air with his arms up that was controlling them. Crazy crazy stuff. Lori was thinking Rosita might want to check the woman for a bump on the head when she got done birthing her baby.

"I think she might be from Camp Little Lake," Rolland said. "They were supposed to get here a week or two ago so some of them could come to the summer meeting with us."

"They are dead, all dead," the woman mumbled. Then she fainted.