Chapter Seven: The Winding Road
After thirty minutes of getting nowhere, Shane made the executive decision to hike back to camp on foot, something Ed was highly against, but Shane told him to shove it up his ass. Jim didn't take too kindly to the idea either, especially since he had spent all of his energy on the trip to AutoZone. He had puked up all of his food and now had absolutely nothing in him to fuel his tank. Sensing his worry, Andrea took hold of his arm and then asked Shane if there was any food at all in the Buick. Jim was in luck because after a few minutes of searching around everywhere with the flashlight held in his mouth, Shane surfaced with a package of stale peanuts, but at this point Jim knew he needed it because the thought of being left alone in the darkness to be devoured by walkers was highly unappealing to him. He stomached the peanuts with a small bit of difficulty and then crumpling the cellophane, stuffed it into his pocket.
"We're gonna be moving fast so try'n keep up," said Shane. "We'll come back for the car tomorrow, but we're still a ways out from the camp, so it's gonna be rough goin'. If you're having trouble keeping up then speak up otherwise you might get left behind and we don't want that, do we, Ed?" he added with a bit of venom in his voice. "So we're gonna look out for each other and keep our eyes on the road for walkers. Everyone understand?"
Jim gave him a bit of a scowl. If he expected Ed to watch out for everyone else's ass then there was something seriously wrong with him. Having to rely on Ed for back up was about as reassuring as lying down next to a bitten victim and hoping that they wouldn't reanimate. In other words, Jim thought the idea was stupid.
"Let me know if you need help; I'll be right in front of you," said Andrea and then dropping her voice so that only he could hear she added, "don't you leave me hanging out there or I will hunt you down and force-feed you squirrel before I kill you."
Jim thought that that was a very adamant threat. He fell into step behind Andrea and beside Ed as they started jogging up the road which was uphill and a pain in the ass to boot. Trying not to think of the rockier, rougher road to the camp which also just happened to be uphill, Jim concentrated on the back of Andrea's blonde hair in the silvery light cast out by the nearly full moon. Her ponytail swung back and forth with her movements in a hypnotic sort of way so that Jim hardly noticed where they were going or indeed how fast they were getting there. They were about half a mile onto the mountain trail by the time he became aware of the fact and by then he had been so used to the sloping road that it didn't seem to matter.
Suddenly Shane held out his arm to stop them and made ducking motions. As one they all went to their knees, eyes darting around to try and detect movement around them, but the three of them could not see what Shane could. Making almost no noise at all Shane laid down flat on his stomach and began to army crawl sideways with his shotgun cradled in his arms. Shrugging briefly at Andrea, Jim followed suit as he kept his bat in the same position. He moved with deliberate slowness so as not to disturb any loose rocks or crack twigs. When he turned back over his shoulder to see if Andrea and Ed were following, he bumped his head against Shane's back and then moved over so that they were almost touching. Andrea squeezed herself in beside Jim and then Ed came in on her left.
Then they saw them.
There were five walkers all staggering across the path directly where the group would have ended up if Shane hadn't stopped them. They didn't move fast, pressing forward with all the haste of a turtle out of water. They passed within a few feet of where the four of them lay and as one gave a startling groan, Andrea opened her mouth to gasp. Jim foresaw something of this nature happening and had prepared himself by placing his hand very close to her face. Now he slapped it over her lips. Luckily another walker moaned at the same time that the skin on Jim's palm made the sound of smacking against the skin of another and their presence went unnoticed.
Once the dead had moved on Jim slowly uncovered her mouth and Shane whispered, "Guess camp's not as safe as it used to be. More'n more walkers roaming around the whole damn place."
"Do you think any more got into camp?" asked Andrea anxiously, standing up.
"No way of telling, c'mon, we're running from here."
Running was the one word Jim did not want to hear but the one he knew would motivate Ed. Even though he was the apocalyptic world's biggest asshole, Ed cared about his wife and daughter to some degree and so the threat on his family would cause him to move as quickly he possibly could to ensure that they were still alive. Jim started to sweat again against the breeze and the sour stench of body odor wafting up through his nostrils. It seemed like that was all he did anymore and he didn't suppose that the stains would ever come out of his shirts. They hit a deep slope in the road that eventually gave way to a drop off and the gravel became slippery. Ed gained too much momentum and his bulk dragged him forward. Jim hooked his fingers around Ed's belt loops, but the latter dragged him along and as Jim was bracing for the fall and then impact Shane grabbed Jim by the collar. The three skidded to a stop just shy of the edge and Ed scrambled backwards.
"Watch your step, boys," said Shane. "Keep moving."
It seemed to Jim that they weren't getting any closer to the camp, but he didn't even know the way, so he had no way of estimating. When the road began to wind back and forth, however, he knew that they were coming up on the RV and sure enough, they broke out into the open where their first sight was that of Dale standing atop his Winnebago with his rifle pointed directly at them.
"Don't shoot, Dale, it's us!" Shane called.
"I'll be damned, they actually made it," said Daryl, looking on in disbelief as the group came to an exhausted stop. Jim bent over with his hands on his knees and spat out a bit of vomity saliva from between his teeth while Andrea dropped to her knees, but Ed kept going right up to his tent where his wife and daughter met him with tearful embraces. Jim didn't understand it; he didn't think anyone should be that happy to see Ed. Dale had climbed down and offered up a canteen to Shane and Andrea while Daryl tossed Jim one, shaking his head. "I don't believe it; we thought y'all weren't comin' back. You owe me, Merle, they're back!"
"You made a bet that we wouldn't come back?" asked Shane with a deep frown on his face.
"Naw, Merle did," said Daryl earnestly. "I knew you were gonna be fine."
"You just said you didn't believe it," Andrea pointed out, but Daryl went to collect his winnings from his brother.
By now Lori, Amy, and Carl joined them and there was another round of sloppy, emotional hugs for Shane and Andrea. However, Jim found himself pulled in close by Amy who thanked him for watching out for Andrea and then Dale patted him on the back to commend him for a job well done. Shane retold the story of Glenn to the others and Amy burst into open tears as Dale took off his hat.
"How could that—that asshole survive instead of Glenn?" asked Lori in an enraged whisper. "Ed didn't do anything for them by going; he as good as killed that boy."
"Glenn always knew the risk, Lori," said Shane. "He contributed to us all by going into the city and his luck just ran out, that's all. Hopefully we'll be able to make it back to that AutoZone and recover his body soon; I locked the door so that the walkers couldn't get to him."
"We'd go back to just get his body?" asked Dale. "That seems like we're risking an awful lot to get a body to bury."
"You'd prefer to let him rot in a closet?" asked Amy as Andrea hugged her close.
"I'd prefer to not lose anyone else just for that. We're all grieving here, but we'll be burying more bodies if we go back. It's not sensible or sentimental; it's stupid."
"But it's Glenn…"
"Glenn was no more of a human than any of us than perhaps Ed and maybe Merle and it makes absolutely no sense to go find his body. We can honor him, but not this way," said Dale and there was a sense of insistency now as more people joined them and began to take Lori and Amy's side.
"Well, if Shane wants to go back for his body he can go and you have no say to stop him," said Lori, but Shane was looking at her uncomfortably.
"I didn't mean right now, Lori, we just got back. And if that closet has to be his grave then so be it, I mean, I don't think it's such a good idea to go all the way out there. Jim, Andrea, and I were lucky that once we got Ed the only thing that happened to us was a flat tire on the Buick when it couldda been a lot worse."
"Well, I'm not going back and I know Ed isn't, so who does that leave to go with you, Shane?" asked Andrea. "You can't go alone and no one's volunteering."
"Now is not the time to discuss it," said Dale, face relaxing and silently thanking Andrea for speaking up. He turned to Jim and asked, "You okay, son?" Jim nodded, made it two feet and swayed before he stumbled into Dale, nearly knocking the older man over.
"He needs some food," said Andrea, escorting Jim down into a chair as he held his head and clamped his fingers over his temples. Dale went scrounging around in his pantry for something that Jim could manage to swallow while Andrea sponged his forehead with a damp cloth to clear up the sweat and cool him down a bit. "You did great out there," she complimented.
"I didn't do nothin'," he said, though he wasn't trying to speak modestly. He just didn't think that he did anything worthy of praise.
"You kept up and more importantly, you didn't try to kill yourself," Andrea continued as Dale handed her a can of peas and carrots which had already been opened with a fork stuck in it. Jim tried to take the can, but he could hardly lift his arm and so all he could do was look helplessly at it. He supposed that he really did have "pathetic" written all over his face because Andrea stabbed a few vegetables on the fork and prompted, "Open up."
Oh, no. No, no, this woman was not going to feed him. He seized the can from her so viciously that some of the contents spilt out. She laughed and without warning, bent over to kiss him right above the eyebrow. He froze with the fork halfway into his mouth so that some of the water to preserve the vegetables dripped steadily into his lap. No memories of Tara came flooding back into him, but a rather a new feeling stirred deep down in his gut, one that made his neck prickle. He couldn't identify the meaning of the emotion, but he knew that it confused him and that Andrea was making life a whole lot more difficult to comprehend.
