Beatrix
My body jumps from being startled and I almost fall out of the truck. Before my butt leaves the seat though, someone catches me and pushes me back into a sitting position. I flutter my eyes open to see Daryl standing there with an annoyed expression on his face.
"Ya gotta get out. I'm ditchin' the truck because it's not good on gas," he explains while I grab my bag and hop out of the blue pickup.
"Where are you gonna ride then?" I question as he pulls my pole out of the truck bed and sits it down beside of me.
"Merle's motorcycle. Already filled it up and everything. Everyone's ready to go," Daryl pushes me towards the RV and I take the hint that I can't ride with him anymore. Not that I'd want to anyway. He's rude and he doesn't talk much. I'm not a huge fan of rude people.
"Hey, Dale," I smile, walking up to the RV. "Got room for one more?"
"Of course," Dale pats my shoulder and ushers me in the RV. "You can just put your stuff in the back with the medical supplies."
"Thank you, Dale," I climb into the RV and set my bag and IV pole in the back room, then sit down at the table beside of Shane. "What are you guys doing?"
"Cleaning guns," Shane mumbles. "You know how to shoot?"
"No. I never really felt the need to learn," I shrug. It's true; I've never tried to shoot one. I don't even like holding one.
"When we get somewhere safe, I'll teach you," Shane throws an arm around my shoulders. "After all, I am a licensed instructor."
"Sounds like fun," I do my best fake smile and he buys it. Shooting a gun is something I would rather not do. Ever.
"Stupid radiator hose," Dale angrily puts the RV in park and turns off the key. Shane, Andrea, Glenn and I follow him out of the RV listening to him rant, "I told you all that that hose wouldn't last no time."
"Well if we can't find a hose in this place, we'll never find one," Shane shakes his head, looking around. We're in the middle of a freeway full of abandoned cars.
"We can scavenge here," Rick says. "Siphon some fuel and get these cars out of the way to fit the RV through and head on to Fort Benning."
"I don't know how I feel about this," Lori holds a hand over her eyes, blocking out the sun. "This is a graveyard."
"I don't like it," I agree with Lori. "Taking things from here just doesn't feel right."
"We could find medicine and bandages in the cars," Rick looks at me, knowing that I'll agree.
"I'll look for the medical supplies," I change my mind and take walk off to find a car that looks promising.
"If I see any medicine in these cars, how will I know which ones to take?" T-Dog asks from behind me. He's siphoning gas from the car beside of mine.
"Take them all," I tell him. "We can use everything we find at some point or another. That's the beauty of medicine; one pill could treat dozens of different diseases. We shouldn't let any go to waste."
"Alright then," he nods his head and moves into another car.
God, this is morbid. As I rummage through each bag and suitcase, I think about what happened to the person it belonged to. Obviously they're dead, but I just wonder how it happened. Maybe they died of some disease that wasn't a walker bite, but I'll never know. After not finding anything other than a box of Band-Aids and some peroxide, I move to the next car.
"Oh shit," I hear T-Dog whisper from nearby. "Beatrix!"
"Yeah?" I whisper, running to where he was. He was sat down beside of a car with his arm sliced open and his radial artery pumping blood out. "Oh God, how'd you manage that?"
"Shhh you have to be quiet," he breathes out. "There's a bunch of them coming towards us. You need to hide."
"What? No, I need to get your arm fixed," I drop down beside of him and rip my top shirt off, leaving me in a tank top. He winces when I wrap it around his arm and push down hard.
"I've got it from here. They're getting close, now go get under that truck," he points with his good arm at a delivery truck not too far away.
"I'm not leaving you by yourself with an injury like this," I shake my head and notice a walker slowly walking towards us. Standing up, I hesitantly reach for my knife that's strapped to my left leg, but Daryl beats me to it.
"Why the hell aren't you under a truck?" He hisses at me.
"T-Dog is hurt and I can't leave him by himself," I motion to T-Dog on the found beside of me. He's breathing heavily and keeping pressure on his right arm.
"You're an idiot, Beatrix," Daryl huffs and drags T-Dog so he's laying down on the blacktop. He quickly throws the walker he killed on top of him and telling him to say quiet. Then he grabs my arm and pulls me never to the truck T-Dog pointed out, forcing me under it and sliding in beside of me.
"Daryl, he needs-" I begin to explain that T-Dog is going to need stitches soon, but he doesn't let me finish. He wraps his arm around my head and covers my mouth with his hand.
Pairs of feet begin shuffling past us, their moans and groans becoming louder with each step. Instinctively, I scoot closer to Daryl when their footsteps get closer to the side of truck. He tightens his grip on me while the heard passes. What feels like hours, but was probably only twenty minutes, later, the feet stop passing by and Daryl removes his hand from my mouth, but leaves his arm slung over me.
"Do you think they're gone?" I ask him with my cheek pressed against the blacktop.
"Give it a few minutes. Make sure they're all gone," Daryl whispers. A couple of minutes later he pokes his head out from under the truck, then pulls the rest of his body out, "Come on, you can help him now."
"Finally," I sigh and shuffle out from underneath the delivery truck. I quickly make my way back over to T-Dog and pull the dead walker off of him, "Are you okay? Can you feel your arm?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm dizzy though and-" T-Dog starts to talk, but he passes out before he can finish.
"Great," I mumble and remove my shirt from his arm to see if the bleeding has stopped. It hasn't, so I wrap it back on and tie it as tight as I can because I can't hold it right now. I move his body the best that I can so that his feet are propped up above his head, just in case he was in shock.
"Beatrix? Do you need any-" Daryl stops as soon as he looks down at T-Dog. "He dead?"
"No, no," I shake my head and continue to apply pressure to his arm. "He passed out, probably from blood loss, maybe from shock. I don't know, but I need to get him somewhere better than lying on the blacktop. It's probably not the best place to give stitches."
"I'll get Shane," Daryl mumbles and walks off. A minute later he returns with Shane. They both pick him up and walk with him towards the RV.
"Try to keep his legs elevated!" I call and follow after them. Soon enough they have him in the RV and they quickly disappear.
They didn't even keep his legs elevated, how rude. I grab all of the available pillows and stuff them under his legs before checking on the bleeding again. It's stopped, which is great. My medicine bags are still on the bed behind me, so I rummage through them until I find what I need for his arm. The peroxide bubbles when I pour it in, which is a good sign. It means I'm getting all of the infection out before it has the time to properly set in. I quickly stitch the cut shut and finish off by wrapping it in gauze because nobody wants to see that. When I'm all done, I leave him and head outside to see what everybody else is doing.
"Guys?" I question, looking around at everyone. They're all deathly quiet and Daryl, Rick, and Carol's daughter, Sophia, are missing. "What happened?"
"Sophia ran off into the woods trying to get away from a walker," Lori quietly informed me, pulling me away from Carol. "Rick went straight after her, but now they can't find her. He said he told her to stay put, but when he went back she wasn't there. Carol isn't in the best state right now."
"That's terrible," I sigh and shake my head. "So Daryl and Rick are out looking for her?"
"Mhmm," Lori nods and starts going through one of the cars. "Daryl's a good tracker and Rick's had a lot of experience with stuff like this. We should be able to find her."
"I hope we do," I smile and begin digging through cars with her.
Hours later, once it's almost dark, Rick and Daryl returns from their hunt for Sophia. I had gathered as much medical supplies as I could and stuffed it all into a crate and was very pleased with how much I actually got.
"Did you find my baby?" Carol asks them as they walk towards us. We're all gathered around, waiting for answers because Sophia was obviously not with them.
"No, but-"
"You can't leave my baby out there to spend the night by herself! She's just a child," Carol cries out.
"Lookin' in the dark would be even worse. We'd just be trippin' over ourselves. Probably get more of us lost too," Daryl looks at her sympathetically. I'm surprised that Daryl's showing any emotion other than anger or annoyance.
"Is that blood?" Carol points at Daryl's pants. Not sure why she was looking at his pants, but I wasn't going to question it. None of us were, I don't think.
"We ran into a walker," Rick explains. "There's no proof that it was anywhere near your little girl."
"How can you know that?" Andrea asks.
"We cut the son of a bitch open," Daryl tells her. "We can look some more in the mornin'."
"Everybody get some rest. We'll head out first thing tomorrow," Rick orders and everybody scatters out. I walk over to one of the cleaner cars I went through and curl up in the backseat, drifting off to sleep.
"Everybody takes a weapon," Rick rolls out an entire arsenal on the hood of a random car.
"These aren't the kind of weapons we need," Andrea complains. I shrug and take out a machete. Guns aren't necessary, so it doesn't really bother me, but Andrea is honestly getting a little annoying.
"We've already been over this, Andrea. Rick, Daryl and I will be the only ones carrying," Shane sighs.
"I want my gun," Andrea puts her hands on her hips.
"Rick and I are licensed to carry anyway, and Daryl knows what he's doing. We don't need people popping off rounds every time a bush shakes," Shane explains. I tune them out as they argue and begin to pack a few things into a backpack that I found in a car.
"We'll go up the creek five miles and then back down. That's her only landmark; she should be there," Daryl slings his crossbow on his back and we all head out.
We walk for hours in silence except for the occasional call for Sophia. I walk beside of Lori, careful to avoid looking at Carol. I've never been the best at comforting people in these types of situations. Give me a dying patient's family members, and I'm fine. But give me someone whose lost a child and I'm completely clueless. I know the situations are similar, but really I'm only good at consoling my patients and their families. Pretty much all I'm good at is doing things for my patients and their families.
"Hold up," Rick holds a hand up and motions for us to stop. There's a tent in front of us and Daryl is already slowly unzipping it. "Carol, call out for her. If she's in there, your voice should be the first she hears."
"Sophia," Carol manages to say through her constant crying. "Sophia, baby, it's mommy."
Rick nods his head at Daryl and he quickly opens the tent. They both cough and take a stop back. The stench drifts back to us and I let out a gag. Someone has obviously died in there, probably killed himself if I was guessing. I watch as Daryl goes into the tent and comes back out a few seconds later, shaking his head.
"She's not in there. Some guy chose to opt-out like Jenner put it," Daryl wipes his face and we all fell silent again until we hear church bells ringing. Everyone takes off running until we finally break out of the tree line.
"Rick that's not it," Shane refers to the church in the distance. "No steeple, no bells."
Rick ignores him and takes off running to it anyway with all of us right behind him. The bells stop ringing by the time we make it to the front steps though. Rick, Shane and Daryl open the doors and kill the walkers inside.
"Yo, JC, you takin' any requests?" Daryl says to the statue of Jesus on the cross that stands in the front of the room. I let out a laugh from a few pews behind him and he raises an eyebrow at me. "Not religious?"
"Not at all," I say and head back outside of the church. Although I don't exactly believe, I still feel uncomfortable standing in a church. While everyone else is inside praying or whatever religious people do, I sit outside on the bricks around the welcome sign.
"This is some bullshit," Daryl grumbles from beside of me. "We don't need to waste any time here prayin' 'cause that's not gettin' us anywhere. What we should be doing is walking along the damn creek and lookin' for that little girl."
"You're right," my head nods in agreement. "It's a waste of time. I prefer medical and scientific explanations than just blindly putting my faith into something I can't even prove."
"You're not as dumb as I thought you were," Daryl reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette.
"I'm not dumb at all," I state. He can say it all he wants, but I know for a fact that I'm not dumb.
"Ya got no common sense," he puffs out a small cloud of smoke.
"Fair enough," I agree. He's right though; I'm only smart when it's something that I was taught. It falls silent between us until he puts his smoke out and walks back over to the others. They're all gathered together, so I follow him.
"Shane and I are gonna' stay here for another hour or something. Just to be a bit more thorough," Rick says, wiping sweat off of his forehead.
"You're splitting us up. You sure?" Daryl asks Rick.
"Yeah, we'll be right behind you. Just head back to the highway up the other side of the creek," Rick tells us, then hands Lori his gun.
"I'm not gonna' leave you unarmed," Lori shakes her head.
"Here, I gotta' spare. You can take it," Daryl hands Lori a small handheld gun. If looks could kill, Lori would be dead ten times over by Andrea. She's still butt hurt over Dale taking her gun I guess.
"I wanna' stay with you, Dad," Carl walks over to Rick.
"It's up to your mom," Rick looked at Lori. "But I think you'd be okay."
"Be safe," Lori kissed his head, letting him go.
The small group of Carol, Andrea, Daryl, Glenn, Lori and I made outer way back to the highway. We called out for Sophia as we walked, but we had no luck in finding her. Nobody spoke and Carol just cried. I felt terrible for her, but there's nothing I can do to help her. Once we're about halfway back, we hear a single gunshot sing out. We paused for a moment, but continued walking in silence.
"Something's wrong," Lori suddenly stops. "Why only one gunshot?"
"Probably just had to put down a walker," Daryl sighs.
"Don't patronize me," Lori shakes her head. "Rick wouldn't risk using his gun to put down a single walker, or Shane, they'd use a knife."
"Shouldn't they have caught up with us by now?" Carol timidly asks.
"Nothin' we can do about it anyway," Daryl tells us. "We best keep doin' what we've been doin'. Lookin' for Sophia and makin' our way back to the highway."
"I'm sure they'll meet us back at the RV," I put a hand on Lori's shoulder as Carol talks to Andrea.
"I just keep hoping and praying she doesn't end up like Amy," Carol says. She shakes her head after realizing what she just said, "Oh God. That's the worst thing I've ever said to someone."
"If it's worth anything, we're all hoping and praying with you," Andrea nods, trying not to look offended, though it's failing.
"Hoping and praying won't get you anywhere," I say to them. "The only thing we can do is search for her and we will find her."
"Damn right," Daryl says. "Trixy is the only one out of all of ya'll that's got half a brain. We're gonna' track down and find your little girl."
"Trixy?" I question, walking at the same pace as Daryl.
"Didn't-" Daryl starts to explain himself, but Andrea screaming stops him. We turn to run to her, but a woman on a horse has already taken care of the walker.
"Lori? Lori Grimes?" The woman frantically looks around. "Beatrix?"
"Who are you?" Lori asks the woman.
"Are you Lori?" Lori nods, "Carl's been shot. You need to come with me right now. Is there a Beatrix?"
"I'm Beatrix," I speak up.
"Rick said for you to get a Daryl to drive you on his bike out to the farm. He said you were a trauma surgeon, right?"
"Yeah," I say, getting excited. Not because Carl got shot, but because I was going to get to perform surgery again. Rick was my last and I absolutely love doing it.
"Good. We need you to remove the bullet fragments from his abdomen," the woman pulls Lori up onto the horse with her. "Get back onto Fairborn Road, two miles down you'll see our mailbox. The name is Greene."
"We don't even know this woman! How are you supposed to trust her?" Daryl yells as the woman rides off with Lori on the back of the horse.
"Daryl, she knows Rick and she knows our names. Carl has been shot and I need to perform surgery on him," I grab his arm and start to pull him along.
"You're right," he mumbles and turns to the rest of the small group. "Ya'll make your way back to the RV. Stay there tonight and rig a big sign in case Sophia makes her way back there, then head to the farm in the morning."
"We can a meet up there," I add in before letting go of Daryl's arm and taking off in a run towards the highway. Daryl is right behind me and it only takes us minutes to get back.
"What's wrong?" Dale asks from on top of the RV.
"Carl's been shot," I explain as Daryl gets onto his bike. "They need me. Daryl, don't we need a surgical kit?"
"Rick said for me to bring you on the bike," Daryl starts the engine on the motorcycle. "He would have said if they needed any medical supplies. You're fine, now get on."
"Alight," I mumble and swing my leg over the bike, sitting down.
"You best hold on tight," Daryl tells me as he starts maneuvering through the abandoned cars. "Unless you wanna' fall off."
I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze tight, afraid of falling off. The thought of operating on someone had clouded my mind. I hadn't even thought about how this was my first time on a motorcycle or how afraid of them I used to be. I force the scared thoughts away and bury my face into Daryl's back, just hoping the ride would be over soon.