Short chapter, but I'm finally starting to feel like I can keep off the pain killers long enough to write a coherent sentence, so I thought I'd post a little update. I hope you like it, and review on it, I think I've really been missing the reviews lol.

Chapter 9

Tabatha decided to distance herself from the group and their little feast, hoping to avoid a conflict of any kind if someone decided to bring up Merle. She wasn't sure she could stop herself from unleashing the rage that was boiling inside of her. Instead, she sat in the RV, looking through an old photo album she had toted with her for pretty much her entire life. The album held some of her greatest memories, sadly there were little to no photos of her parents. She knew she had always been a burden to them, when she was small and cute they dragged her everywhere, savoring the attention they received from people cooing over her. Once she had gotten into that awkward phase, where she was pretty much just long arms and legs, braces, glasses, and acne, that's when she ended up alone.

Her parents would go out to all the big parties in town, making up some excuse about how she had homework, or she was sick. All the while she was at home, whittling away the hours reading or watching TV. When they would get home they were usually too drunk to do anything but collapse in their bed and pass out. Tabby had started to excel in school, which they took as bragging rights to their so called friends. But she never did it for them, she worked hard, hoping that some day she could get a scholarship to a school in Georgia, and live with her grandparents again. She had always felt like they were her real parents, and Merle and Daryl where her real family.

She flipped the page and came across a picture that made her smile from ear to ear. It was of Merle, Daryl, and her standing in front of a river. Merle was about 17, standing in the middle with a huge grin, a whopper of a fish in his right hand, and his left hand on a 7 year old Tabatha's head. She was wearing an over sized fishing hat, her braided pig tails sticking out of the bottom of it. You could barely see her face, just her big grin, showing off her three missing teeth. She was holding a fishing pole and a little fish up for the camera. Daryl was on the other side of Merle, a little scowl on his face and his eyes rolling. He was 8, and his fish was way bigger than Tabby's, but she still remembered bragging about the giant fish she caught. Her grandma had taken the picture, she loved taking pictures.

Tabby was still lost in her memories when the door popped open and Amy walked in, calling out something about using the bathroom behind her. Tabatha just tried to ignore her, like she'd been ignoring everyone. After a couple minutes Amy walked back through, opened the door and called out that there wasn't any toilet paper. That's when all Hell broke loose.

The screaming started with Amy, her arm being torn into by a walker, then it seemed to erupt from everyone around camp. Shouted instructions jumbled with screams of terror. Tabatha was about to bolt out of the door of the RV when one of the walkers started trying to climb in through the door. She grabbed a crowbar that was leaning up against one of the seats and started wailing on it's head, almost primal screams coming out of her mouth before she could even stop them. A few more walkers were trying to climb over the dead one in front of the door. It felt like she was swinging that thing for hours before it all stopped.

Everyone was shook up or crying. Andrea was sobbing over the lifeless form of Amy, Carol was crying about her dick of a husband being dead. The kids were all crying, terrified of there near death experience. When the dust had settled they took stock of their losses. Eleven people, they were so unprepared.

Daryl had made his way to the RV to find Tabatha, huddled underneath the table, crying quietly. He pulled her out and held her close to his chest. So much death in just a short amount of time. He didn't know whether or not she was crying because of the death, the terror, or the shock. But he knew why she would be crying later.

They had finished up burning and burying, discovered Jim's bite and put him in the back of the R.V. all before anyone asked why Tabatha was just sitting down by the water. Daryl wandered down to her at that point, leaving Rick to explain that the trip was damn near pointless. They hadn't found Merle, just his hand, and they split the guns with another group in the city. Daryl had told Tabby about Merle when they started the clean up, he couldn't take the way she was looking around the camp, eyes full of hope that her big moron was going to pop out from behind a tree or something.

When he got down to where she was sitting he plopped down next to her. They sat in silence, him staring at his hands that he had dangling over his bent knees, her staring off into the water, like it was going to open up and tell her all the secrets of the world. He was about to get up and leave again, thinking she didn't want any company, when she spoke.

"Why'd he do it?" she asked quietly.

"Why'd he what? Cut his hand off? Prolly cuz he didn wanna be on that roof no more." he replied, hoping to lighten her mood.

She shook her head and frowned at the water. "Why'd he leave me?"

Daryl had been hoping Merle had stolen their van to get back to her, to keep her safe like he always did. But after the shock of the attack died down, he realized Merle wasn't there. If he was heading back to camp he would of been there way before his rescue party made it back. Daryl knew that Tabatha was going to have a hard time understanding how he could just leave her. He'd always been there when she needed him, and now it was like he just disappeared.

He shrugged and kicked at some of the rocks around his boot. "Dunno, figured he woulda come back ta ya."

Tabatha closed her eyes, trying to will the tears away. "Well...he didn't. And now...now I'm all alone. He was all I had...and now...he's gone." she said, stopping every now and then to gulp down her tears.

He didn't know if she'd be pissed at him, but he had to do something, so he put his arm around her and pulled her close. "Tabs, he's not all ya had." She looked up at him, her eyes shinning with tears. "Ya got me. Imma keep ya save, okay?" He finished as he wiped away some of the tears that escaped her eyes.

She sniffled and nodded before running her hands over her face.

"Okay, now we gotta go back up ta camp, they wanna talk bout where we going next." He stood up and helped her to her feet, then followed her back up to camp.