Chapter Eleven: I Missed You

Shane turned and heard a loud rumbling noise, seeing a red car come around the quarry. "What the hell is that?" asked Dale, the old man on top of the R.V. "Looks like Glenn."

The car slid to a stop right in front of the R.V. and Glenn got out with a big smile. "I LOVE that thing."

"You tryna attract Walkers? Because that's all they heard all the way here." Shane came out angrily. "Well I needed to show the rest of the people how to get here. We picked up three people in the city."

Shane waved it off as a hauling van came up and slid to a stop next to the Challenger and first one out was T-Dog. "I really don't like riding in vehicles…" Morales and Andrea just laughed at him while Jacqui led him off to the R.V. to lay down while Dale approached the car, already with plans to dismantle it.

"Oh come on man, I love this thing." Complained Glenn. "It's loud and will attract Walkers and not to mention it'll eat up a lot of gas. But it does have parts we need so it does have some use." Glenn just looked at it sadly while Rick, Harry and Ron got out.

"Rick?"

Shock registered on Shane's face when he saw his best friend get out of the van. "Hey Shane. I seen what you did, blocking the door. Thanks brother." Shane just nodded and showed him to where Carl and Lori were while Harry and Ron followed. Next thing they knew, they were almost knocked off their feet. "Harry! Ron! You made it back!" Harry chuckled and hugged Hermione and Ginny. Ginny whispered in Harry's ear 'We need to talk.'

Harry looked at her curiously and let it go for now while they walked over to the group around the campfire.

"And these two are the ones who came back for me." Carl patted Harry on the arm while Lori hugged Ron. "Thank you for bringing him back to us." Harry and Ron just looked away, embarrassed at the thanks.

"How did you find him?" asked Shane

"We went back to the house and apparently he was wandering around without a clue."

Carl hit his dad lightly on the arm and Rick laughed it off. "Come and meet everybody."

They walked around the camp and Shane introduced him to everybody. "You already know Glenn and with him is Dale. He owns the R.V. That over there is Ed and Carol. They have a daughter around Carl's age. Morales and his family. You know Andrea and that's her sister Amy. Jacqui and T-Dog are in the R.V. doing God knows what. And that over there's Jim. Dunno what he's doing up there though digging them holes."

Shane cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted "Hey Jim, what are you doing.!?"

Jim just waved and kept digging and Shane just shrugged.

"We'll check on him later. Oh, I almost forgot, there's Merle's brother Daryl. He's not gonna be too happy about you leaving his brother and he's potentially worse."

"Yeah, well if he was in my shoes, he probably would have done the same."

Shane shook his head in denial but said nothing.

"Speaking of which, we should send out patrol to scan the woods for Walkers. Knowing them, the racket that Glenn made on the way up here attracted a ton of them."

Rick and Shane made their way out into the woods while Ron, Harry, Ginny, and Hermione went back to camp with Carl and Lori. Ginny squeezed Harry's hand and he looked at her. She gave him a look that said to follow her and once they were alone, she turned to him.

"We have to talk about Shane.."

"What about him?"

"He's unstable. He beat Ed into unconsciousness and his wife had to carry him back to their tent. Not only that, but he's been making eyes at both me and Hermione."

"I'll deal with him. But I need to tell you something as well. We can't use magic around these people. They'll suspect and we'll be under scrutiny and might be seen as a bigger threat to them than the Walkers. No doubt that the American Ministry of Magic has given up on the crisis and went into hiding. Typical government."

"We need to use it sometimes. If we have no way out of here, we need to make it as easy for us and these people as possible."

"We need a medium. Somewhere in between so that we don't expose ourselves but also help everybody."

Ginny agreed.

They noticed a shadow beside them and asked "Who's there?" The shadow disappeared quickly and panic set in. "Someone was eavesdropping. We donlt know who it is either which is going to be a problem. Let's get back to camp."

Carl wandered around the camp talking to random people. "Hey Carl, come here." He turned to see Dale watching him from beside the R.V. and went to him. "You know if you find yourself in need of something to do, I have some books for you. It'll be good for you to keep up your social skills."

"No thanks, Dale, but thanks anyway."

"Come on up with me and let's keep watch."

Carl grinned widely and climbed up the ladder and sat next to Dale, thinking about what he had overheard not minutes before.