AN: I feel that a lot of you are losing interest as we are going into the painfully boring season 2, but I promise you to just hold out for two more chapters—it won't be boring! I have something very special planned that will sort of speed the romance up, and general pace of the story. Without further ado, enjoy and review.
Chapter 11
"I guess I'm losing hope that you can hear me… But there's always that chance, isn't there?" the sheriff said, only to be greeted with more static from the other end of the walkie-talkie. "That slim chance… It's all about slim chances now. I tried to do everything right, keep people safe… I tried, Morgan. I did.
"Our group's smaller now. We lost another, day before last. I was her choice. I won't say I blame her, but she lost faith. The CDC was a dead end. I met a man there; a scientist. He told me something. He told me…
"It doesn't matter. What matters is we're moving on. Atlanta is done. We're gonna try for Fort Benning. We're facing a long hard journey. Maybe even harder than I can imagine. But it can't be harder than our journey's been so far. Or can it? A hundred twenty-five miles—that's what lies ahead. And I'm trying hard not to lose faith… I can't. If I do, the others… My family, my wife… My son. There's just a few of us now. We've got to stick together, fight for each other, and be willing to lay down our lives for each other if it comes to that.
"It's the only chance we've got… Be careful out there, Morgan. I hope you and Duane are okay. Stay off the road. Keep moving. Keep your eyes open. I don't know, just—just be safe. Maybe we'll see you in Fort Benning someday. Rick signing off…"
The man gazed upon the dead city with a frown. The dead lurked below his feet, ignorant of his presence. Rick rubbed his chin, feeling through his new beard coming through. It had been two weeks since the CDC—two weeks living in the hideout of the Vatos. The group had discovered within moments of arrival that their allies had been slaughtered not by Walkers, but humans. It was a cruel reminder of the risks people took these days just to survive.
XXX
Leah watched the trees flying past as she sat on the counter of the RV's kitchen. Once in awhile, the caravan would stumble across a Walker or two, but not even then did they stop. The group had an objective, and nothing would get in the way.
Daryl rode in the front of the group, leading them to the fort. On his brother's motorcycle, the wind blew his hair back, keeping it far from his eyes. The flaps of the man's angel wing vest flew like pasta.
Back inside the RV, Leah climbed off the counters, sitting on the floor next to Glenn in the passenger's seat. She glanced at the map, watching Glenn's fingers as they danced along the paper, following the group's location until they reached a large red circle—Fort Benning.
"Looks complicated," she heard Andrea say from behind her. Looking back, she watched as she and Shane perched on the table, peering over a handgun Shane had taken apart.
"The trick is getting all these pieces back together the same way," Shane told her, smiling. "I could clear yours; show you how."
Andrea gave him a small grin. Shane pulled Andrea's gun from the bag, aiming it at the cabinets as he examined it. "Sweet piece."
"It was a gift," Andrea said. "From my father. He gave it to me just before Amy and I took off on our road trip. He said two girls on their own should be able to defend themselves."
"Smart man," Shane said. "Your father is… So look—it's a limited capacity. It only holds seven rounds."
"Oh, jeez," Dale muttered from the front seat, gathering Shane's attention. He stood up, joining him in the front.
"Oh, no," Glenn sighed.
It was Interstate 85. Abandoned cars littered the roads, full of dead bodies, or entirely empty. The RV came to a halt. Leah stood up as well, peering out of the window. She felt T-Dog hovering behind her.
Daryl double backed on his motorcycle, coming to the driver's side of the RV.
"See a way through?" Dale asked. Daryl looked behind him, back to the wreckage. He bobbed his head back, indicating that the group should keep going.
"Maybe we should just go back," Glenn suggested uneasily. "There's an interstate bypass—"
"We can't spare the fuel," Dale said.
"Forget the fuel," Leah told him. "The RV will break down before we run out of fuel. You know how bad the radiator hose is."
"Jeez," Glenn mumbled.
"We can't get through here," Shane said. There was a clank from inside of the RV. Smoke spurted from the vent of the vehicles, clouding the windshield. The RV came to a sudden halt as the engine roared. The group piled out of their vehicles, meeting at the front of the RV.
"I said it, didn't I say it?" Dale spat. "A thousand times. Dead in the water."
"Problem, Dale?" Shane asked.
Dale rolled his eyes. "Just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of—" he watched Daryl as he rooted through the nearest vehicle. "Okay, that was dumb."
"If we can't find a radiator hose here—"
"There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find," Daryl interrupted.
"I can siphon more fuel from these cars for a start," T-Dog said.
"Maybe some water," Carol added.
"Food?"
"This is a graveyard," Lori stated. Everyone looked at her. "I don't know how I feel about this."
But it was their salvation, and the only hope of survival. "Come on, y'all," Shane said. "Just look around, gather what you can."
As the group, Leah felt her throat close at the sight of her discarded Buick. She wiped her sweaty hands on her pants.
"Everything all right?" Dale asked. She nodded, going towards her vehicle.
She ran her hands around the window frame, gazing inside. It smelled like it always had—alive, and fruity—on the outside. The visor had fallen down, and small papers scattered the ground. She opened the door to her former car, and grabbed the keys that were still in the ignition. She turned the keys, only to find that someone had already drained all the gas from her vehicle. Either that, or she left it running while fleeing the interstate.
With a sad sigh, she looked into the back seat, frowning at the sight of her niece's discarded granola bar wrapper. The woman clutched her face, stepping out. She continued up the highway, but a strong odor blocked her. It came from below her. Looking down, she spotted a dark trail of dried blood. Her eyes followed the trail up to a Walker that had been gutted, and in a heavy state of decay. The Walker had been plastered to the road in its own blood.
"Emma?" the redhead asked. The Walker didn't turn towards the woman. Leah then realized the girl had a shard of glass lodged into her forehead—somebody else had put her down during the riot. She fell to her knees, slumping beside her dead niece. "Emma… I'm so sorry," she whispered as she ran her hand through the corpse's matted hair. Stands fell out at the touch, agitating the face. "You should have listened to me when I told you to come back… She should have, and now you're dead…
"You remember Carl's mom? She and that man took me in. We formed a group by a quarry—you used to love swimming… Walkers attacked the quarry. Can you believe it?" she paused to laugh. "Our leader is a good man. His name is Rick—he's Carl's daddy. You would have liked him, y'know? He's a good man… We're good friends… We were at the CDC for two days before the doctor there blew it up. He was the last doctor there.
"He didn't even know how the outbreak happened," Leah sighed. "We had friends who lived in an nursing home, but they all died. They were murdered. We were on our way to Fort Benning; what a surprise we ended up here, huh? I lied to you, and I shouldn't have. I told you everything would be okay—that I would keep you safe. I lied… Jamie… She's dead. She wasn't at work, I killed her. She came after me with a knife… My own sister… " Leah suddenly said. She pulled her hand away. "I'm so sorry."
She felt relieved that she wasn't the one to put the girl down, but in a way, it only made her feel worse… Somebody else had taken care of one of the many problems in her life. Maybe that was why God kept her alive this long, just to feel the guilt that a stranger had put the girl dow.
Leah stood up from the corpse, turning around to face T-Dog. Instead of saying anything, she just walked past him.
She ran into Lori, grabbing the woman's arms gently. "I found my niece," she said. Lori's jaw dropped.
"Honey," she whispered, trying to pat the woman's shoulder. Leah recoiled.
"She turned," Leah told her. "But somebody else had put her down…" She dropped Lori's arm, and wandered over to the RV.
"Leah—" Rick began as he saw patched of dark blood on her flannel shirt. "Were you bit?"
"What?" she looked down at her clothing, picking out the blood on the white fabric easily. "Oh. No, I wasn't."
"Let me check," Rick said. She took a step back.
"I said I wasn't," she snapped.
"Just let me—"
Leah shoved him away. "It's from a Walker," she told him. "Not me. I'm not like Jim; I would have shown someone."
Rick frowned. "Okay… Okay."
She rubbed her nose. "Anyways, how are you doing?" she asked.
"I'll admit I'm a little pissed about this," he said.
"Who isn't?"
Rick looked up at Dale as Andrea passed, clutching her stomach. "It's all good," Dale said.
Rick nodded to him. The elderly man turned towards the direction the group had come from. He squinted against the sunlight, straining his eyes to see farther. He looked through his binoculars, and Rick noticed. He held up his rifle, peering through the scope to spot a straggling Walker.
"Rick?" Leah asked. "What is it?"
"Shh," he whispered. "Get in the RV."
He continued to gaze. He took the safety off the gun. His finger hovered over the trigger. Just as he prepared to fire, more Walkers suddenly emerged from nowhere. The pack was coming straight for the group.
"Oh Christ," Rick breathed. He turned around, and upon noticing the redhead's disappearance, he hid behind a hatchback. Dale dropped on the roof, hiding from the creatures as they approached.
He crouched down, moving quickly to the next vehicle. Soon he stood up, running full speed to the others.
"Lori!" he called quietly. His wife turned towards him. "Under the cars."
The woman dropped to the ground, shuffling under a black van. Rick was under the car beside his son. He pulled his rifle to his side just as the Walkers reached their location.
The first Walker that had shuffled past kicked Rick's hat. The man froze, and held his finger to his lips as his son looked at him, ready to cry.
There were so many.
Carl buried his face into his hands.
Inside the RV, Andrea continued to fiddle with her gun. Leah paged through a book, lifelessly skimming the flaking paper. It was when Andrea gasped and fell to the floor with her gun pieces that the woman shut her book, spotting the herd of Walkers outside of the RV. She swore under her breath, crawling after Andrea.
They slid inside of the bathroom. Leah pressed her back against the folding door silently as a straggling Walker stumbled into the Winnebago, sniffling the air. His loud footsteps could be heard from the bathroom. Andrea propped her feet up slowly beside Leah's hip to further barricade the door. She continued fiddling with her gun, but froze once the Walker stopped moving, landing right outside of the door.
Black saliva dripped from his mouth as he inspected the door, sure of smell to detect the two women. He pressed against the wood, but slowly pulled away to inspect the bedroom where Jim's scent was still present—the room smelled of his bloody vomit and sweat. But the Walker lost interest. There was nothing left as far as he knew, and the RV was empty. He slumped back through the kitchen as Andrea continued to toy with her gun. Leah gave her a warning look, indicating that if she shot the Walker, more would come, and they would be good as dead.
However, Andrea was too focused on her gun to catch sight of Leah's face. A piece of her gun fell into the floor, tinkling loud enough for the Walker to hear. Andrea swore under her breath. Leah patted her pocket for her knife, her blood turning cold when she felt nothing.
The Walker slumped back down the hallway, pressing against the door. The women stopped breathing. The door shook as the Walker slammed it in the fragile hinges. Andrea screamed as it almost opened the door, biting into Leah's shoulder. The redhead grunted as she blocked the door as best she could. But it was all for not.
Dale heard the blonde's screams as they entered his eardrums. He fished a screwdriver from his pocket, destroying the screen on the emergency window. Andrea glared at the man—this was exactly why she wanted to die in the CDC.
He dropped the screwdriver down, and Andrea caught it.
"Get out of the way," Andrea barely managed. Just as the younger woman ducked, the door flew open, and Andrea slammed into the Walker, shoving the screwdriver through its eye. She screamed as the Walker tried to lung, but she stabbed it again, tackling it down to the white carpet. With a last slice, the Walker ceased. Andrea yanked the tool from its eyes, crying as blood coated her face and neck.
Leah ran her fingers through Andrea's hair, trying to chase away the rest of the rattles is her cages. The Walker's had finally passed
Under the SUV, Carl pulled his head up, smiling at his father.
It was then when the scream rose through the group's location. As Sophia tried to crawl out from under her vehicle, two stragglers spotted her, dropping down to catch her.
Lori held Carol to her, hiding her eyes from the sight as the mother tried to scream. Carl buried his face back into his hands. Being in the car directly beside Sophia, boy slid to the other end of the vehicle. It took several of the girl's cries to poke the bear that was Rick. He crawled out from under his vehicle in a hurry.
The young girl crawled under the road railings, shooting into the woods. The Walkers followed. Rick went after them, rolling down the hill. He sprinted through the forest in desperate search for the young girl.
Carl pulled away from the SUV, and they ran to the side of the road with the rest of the group. Leah yanked Andrea up, and they ran from the RV, the blonde still covered in blood. Carol sobbed, breaking down to her knees. The woman had lost so much already, and now possibly her only child—a child she had tried so hard to protect.
Rick searched high and low for the child. Sweat caked his body. He spotted her through a clearing in the woods. He took off after her.
She was scared. She didn't know where she was going. She just ran…
She tripped over a root protruding up from the ground. She tried to sit up, but her foot was stuck. Arms wrapped around her, yanking the girl from the root. She screamed. Rick clutched her shoulders, making her look at him.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
Sophia grabbed for his revolver. "Shoot them!" He slapped her hand away.
"No," he said as she tried to grab the gun again. "No! Those Walkers on the road would hear it. Then it wouldn't be just two, it'd be hundreds."
XXX
"You didn't find her?" Carol cried. The sun was setting, and going back out would have been useless.
"Her trail went cold," Rick said as he aired out his blood soaked shirt. Daryl stood beside him. "We'll pick it up again at first light."
"You can't leave my daughter out there on her own! To spend the night alone in the woods?"
"Looking in the dark's no good," Daryl said. "We'd just be tripping over ourselves. More people'll get lost."
"But she's twelve," Carol argued. "She can't be out there on her own. You didn't find anything?"
"I know it's hard," Rick said. "I'm asking you not to panic. We know she was out there."
"And we tracked her for a while," Daryl added.
"We have to make this an organized effort. Daryl knows the woods better than anybody. I've asked him to oversee this—"
Carol gasped at the sight of dark blood on the knees of the redneck's pants. "Is that blood?" she asked. The woman began hyperventilating.
"We took down a Walker," Rick said.
"Walker… Oh God."
"There was no sign it was anywhere near Sophia," Rick assured her.
"How can you know that?" Andrea asked. Rick looked at Daryl.
"We cut the son of a bitch open," Daryl said. "We made sure."
Carol rubbed her face, sitting on the railing. She gave Rick a venomous look. "How could you just leave her out there to begin with?" she demanded. "How could you just leave her?!"
"Those two Walkers were on us," Rick defended. "I had to draw them off—it was her best chance."
"It sounds like he didn't have a choice, Carol," Shane said.
"How was she supposed to find her way back on her own?" Carol sobbed. "She's just a child… She's just a child!"
"It was my only option," Rick said. "The only choice I could make."
"I'm sure nobody doubts that," Shane told him.
Leah stepped forward. "No, they couldn't," she said. "We all hid in fear while he was out looking for her—that counts for something."
Carol cried into her hands. "My little girl got left in the woods…"
Andrea and Lori flocked to her sides as the men departed. Carl however, lingered. Leah grasped his shoulder, nudging him away. "Let's get something to eat, yeah?"
"Okay… Do you think Sophia's okay?" Carl asked.
In reality, the woman doubted it. "Yeah," she lied. "I do. Because your daddy is a great man, and he would never leave her behind."
She ushered the boy into the RV. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Rick as he walked off, rubbing his face.
Inside the Winnebago, Leah looked through the baskets on the floor filled with what food they had managed to recover. She lit a match, catching the wick of a candle on fire. "What should we make for dinner, bud?"
"Uh…" the boy sat down with the baskets.
"There's baked beans, peanut butter, saltines, we got water in that truck…" she sat next to the boy, helping him with the food. "Popcorn, cheese spray—not sure how well that still is—, cereal, beef jerky, more beans and canned food…"
"We have to make enough for everyone else, right?" Carl asked. Leah nodded. "Will there be enough?"
"It's called rationing, Carl," his aunt said. "If you wanna survive, you gotta make sacrifices. And food is one."
Carl sighed, handing her a can of cream soup. "Hey," Leah said, patting his chin. "Smile, bud. We'll be at the fort before you know it, and we won't have to ration so badly, okay?"
"Okay…"
"Carl," she said, holding the a. "Smile." The boy did. He crashed into his aunt's chest, hugging her. "It'll all be okay," she told him in a soothing voice. "Just you wait—don't lose faith."
The group ate in silence after that. Rick had finally returned, and munched on a few saltines in his vehicle. A heavier silence fell as the group retired for the night, resting for the long day ahead.
But Leah couldn't sleep. Something was bothering her. She thought about her niece. Leah would never want to turn into a Walker herself. She rooted through her bag, pulling out a single bullet to a small handgun she had left in her vehicle during the outbreak. She left her Buick, stumbling down the road to the RV where Rick took watch for the night, having been unable to sleep as well. She climbed up the ladder, sitting beside him.
"You're doing a great job, Rick," she said. "Don't you dare think otherwise."
"I let that girl get lost," he whispered.
"Her mother let her get lost," Leah insisted. "Don't blame yourself for this. She could have gone right after her daughter and saved her, but she didn't." She reached into her pocket, pulling out the round she had taken. "I want you to have this, Rick."
He looked down at the bullet, taking it from her as he examined the bronze finish. "Why?" he asked.
"If I ever die before you do, I want you to take my gun from me and shoot me. That bullet is just a backup. A reminder, maybe."
"Leah…"
"Please, Rick," she begged. "You can't turn down a woman's dying wish…"
They gathered in the morning. Rick rolled out a Gerber, showing off the weapons in the sunlight. "Everybody takes a weapon," he said.
"These aren't the kind of weapons we need," Andrea argued. "What about the guns?"
"We've been over that," Shane said. Lori and Glenn each grabbed a weapon. Leah stepped up, collecting a camp axe. She weighed it in her hands. "We can't have people popping off rounds every time a tree rustles."
"It's not the trees I'm worried about…"
"Say somebody fire at the wrong moment," Shane snapped. "What if a herd passes by? See, then it is game over for all of us. You need to get over it."
Daryl was the one to change the topic. "The idea is to take the creek up about five miles," he said. "We'll turn around and come back down the other side. Chances are she'll be by the creek. It's her only landmark."
"Stay quiet and stay sharp," Rick said. "Keep space between you but always stay within sight of each other."
"Everybody assemble your packs," Shane said.
Rick clasped Dale's shoulder. "Keep on those repairs. We've got to get this RV ready to move."
"We won't stay here a minute longer than we have to," he assured. "Good luck out there. Bring Sophia back."
"Keep an eye on Carl while we're gone," Rick said.
"I'm going with you," Carl insisted. "You need people, right? To cover as much ground as you can."
Lori shrugged. "You call," she told her husband. "I can't always be the bad guy.
"Well," Dale said. "He has all of you to look after him. I'd say he's in good hands."
"Okay," Rick smiled. "Okay. But always within our sight. No expectations."
The boy nodded, grinning at the elderly man. Dale winked at the boy, and he reached out to retrieve a knife.
"Be careful with that," Leah said as she handed him the last knife. "Don't hurt anybody, and watch where you stick it, okay?"
"Okay," Carl nodded.
"All right," she looked towards Shane. "Are we ready to head out?" she asked.
"Yeah."
They departed from the highway, working through the woods in silence…
The abandoned, decaying yellow tent loomed ahead, peaking out through the wilting trees. The group crept up to the use of shelter. Daryl stepped forward, yanking the zipper open.
Carol called frantically for her child, but there was no response. The woman broke down.
Instead, the dweller of the tent was a deteriorating corpse. The man had committed suicide—opted it out, as Jenner had said.
It was sad.
And the sound of church bells singing and ringing in the distance in turn would only dampen the already wet spirits. Finding Sophia was a lost cause, and several members of the group knew it. They just couldn't admit it.
They galloped down a steep hill, bounding over tombstones with withering epitaphs. The church was small and white, with piercing red doors.
"This can't be it," Shane said. "The church doesn't have a steeple."
Rick slowly opened the doors. The single roomed church was lit only by the blinding sunlight. A statue of Jesus hanging on the cross was in the center of the room, just above the altars.
In all the pews, there lie three Walkers—three Walkers who had died in Lord's home as humans. They turned towards the living, snarling at them. Standing up, the Walkers stumbled towards the group. The men snatched machetes and axes from the other member of their group, and filtered through the pews, taunting the Walkers.
And even after the Walker's had been killed, the men pelted them. Maybe it was anger, or maybe it was ignorance that blinded them. The disgraceful blood soaked into the carpets of the Lord's house.
"Sophia!" Rick screamed. Daryl marched over to the Jesus statue, wiping her forehead.
"Hey, JC?" he asked. "You takin' requests?"
"I'm telling you," Shane told Rick. "It's the wrong church. It's got no steeple, Rick… No steeple."
As if on queue, the church bells hummed again, right above their heads. The group rushed out of the church. Daryl was the first one to reach the speaker that rung with the bells. Glenn stumbled below it, yanking out a chord. The bells stopped, but the echo remained.
"A timer," Daryl sighed. "It's on a timer…"
"I'm gonna go back in for a bit," Carol announced, barely able to keep her tears in.
She fell in front of the Jesus statue, leaning on the altar as tears fell from her eyes, curving around her cheekbones. She was silent until Lori sat on the front pew after five minutes, watching the other mother.
Carol looked up at the depiction. "Father, forgive me," she started. "I don't deserve your mercy. I prayed for safe passage from Atlanta and you provided… I prayed for Ed to be punished for laying his hands on me and for looking at his own daughter with whatever sickness was growing in his soul… I prayed you'd put a stop to it, so please give me a chance to raise her right—help her not make my mistakes.
"She's so fearful. She's so young in her way. She hasn't had a chance… Praying for Ed's death was a sin. But please, don't let this be my punishment. Let her be safe… Alive and safe… Please, Lord. Punish me however you want, but show mercy on her."
Leah stepped through the church doors, having waited until the end of Carol's prayer session before entering. In her family, she had been taught that it was common courtesy to never walk in on somebody praying unless they called out for the help of another. She had been taught that prayer time was Jesus time—nobody else had to get involved.
She stood beside Carl, hugging the boy. "We'll find her, Carl," she said. "The Lord will make sure of it."
"Are you sure?" Carl asked.
"Yes."
XXX
"Gotta move here, man," Shane told Rick outside. "These people are spent. There's only so many hours of daylight left. We still got a long way back."
"I can't stop yet," Rick said.
"We still got a lot of ground to cover on the whole other side of the creek bed so we search that on the way back."
Rick shook his head. "She would have heard those church bells. She could be nearby."
"She could be a lot of things," Shane argued.
"I can't go back. Her being out here is my fault…"
"That's great," his friend scoffed. "Now they got you doubting yourself, huh?"
He narrowed his eyes. "What about you? You doubt me?"
"Hey," Shane said. "We can assign all kinds of blame."
"Finding her means something! It would be the miracle we need. We can't give up."
Shane patted his shoulder angrily, storming off to the others. "Ahem," he said. "Y'all gonna follow the creak bed back, okay? Daryl—you're in charge."
"Me and Rick are just gonna hang back. We'll search this area another hour or so just to be thorough."
"You're splitting us up?" Daryl asked "You sure?"
"Yeah," Shane confirmed. "We'll catch up to you."
"I want to stay too," Carl said. "I'm here friend."
"If he's going, I'm coming with," Leah said after Lori whispered for her to do so. "You two will be busy searching, so I'll make sure he stays out of trouble."
"Just be careful, okay?" Lori told her son as she ruffled his hair.
"I will."
His mother smiled, cupping his face. "When did you start growing up?" she asked, hugging her flesh and blood.
Rick came over, kissing his wife goodbye. Carl between them. Leah stood by Shane. "You don't think we'll find her, do you?" she asked the older man.
"What makes you say that?" Shane demanded.
"I can see it in your eyes," Leah told him. "I can also see how much you want to kill Rick just to get Lori back. It isn't gonna happen. I'll never let that happen."
Shane scoffed. "I don't know what you're goin' off about."
"You know exactly what I'm saying," Leah spat. "I overheard you talking to Lori about leaving—I know you're just gonna catch Rick off guard, kill him, take Lori and Carl, and go. I'm not stupid. I see right through people like you. And people like you—so driven by lust—, they don't last long in a world like this. I thought you were a better person that that, but I was wrong.
"You're so blinded by lust that it consumes you with a burning fire of hatred! The only reason I wanted to come with now was to make sure you didn't kill Rick and run with Carl. Because I don't trust you. All this arrogance will kill you."
Rick walked up to the two. "Could you give me a minute?" he asked Shane. He nodded, and the father disappeared in the church.
"Anything else you gotta say?" Shane demanded.
"Yeah," Leah told him. "If you kill Rick—if you even try, I will gun you down without hesitation. He's a good man, and a better leader than you ever were. You would never be as good as him. Not even close. I would sooner put my life in Daryl's hands before yours."
Shane laughed. "This is coming from the woman that hated this group so badly and wanted to leave."
"This is coming from the man who beat the shit out of me so I didn't leave!" she shouted. "What was I gonna do? Gear up an army and slaughter everyone?"
"It wasn't just that. You could've left anyways. But you didn't."
"There wasn't exactly an ad in the newspaper advertising new groups," she spat. "Don't challenge me again, or you're going to walk out missing some very important limbs."
Carl wandered over to the two adults, ending the argument.
Inside the church, Rick knelt being Jesus. He wasn't a very religious man; that much was true. But that didn't mean he couldn't try to pray.
"I don't know if you're looking at me with what?" he asked. "Sadness? Scorn…? Pity? Love? Maybe it's just indifference…" He took off his sheriff's hat, setting it on the altar. "I guess you already know I'm not much of a believer. I guess I just chose to put my faith elsewhere. My family, mostly. My friends—Leah's the religious one in the group, but you've caused her pain. I wonder why she still has faith… My job.
"The thing is, we—…I could use a little something to help keep us going. Some kind of acknowledgement. Some indication I'm doing the right thing. You don't know how hard that is to know. Well, maybe you do." He placed his hat back on his head, leaving the altar.
"Hey look," he suddenly said, turning back to Jesus. "I don't need all the answers. Just a little nudge. A sign! Any sign will do."
He concluded by giving the statue a cold look. "Any sign…"
Rick finally left, joining his two friends and his son. "Get what you needed?" Shane asked.
"I guess we'll find out." He walked away from the three living.
"C'mon," Shane said to Carl and the redhead. They stood up from the bottom step, chasing after Rick, and into the forest.
The sun sliced through the gaps of the trees, staining whatever it could with its light. The sky already had an orange hue to it, and shadows cast upon the ground.
Not a single Walker stumbled into the path of the smaller group. It was peaceful. Green fungi mantled the ground below them, squishing under the four pairs of boots trampling above. The low branches nipped at the adult's faces, sparing Carl.
Suddenly, branches snapped around them. Rick froze, pushing his companions backwards. He tried to pinpoint the source of the sound, but he was no tracker. He caught a glimpse of white peaking through a clearing, just ahead of the group. Rick crouched down, moving towards the creator of the unwelcomed sound. The other's followed without hesitation.
As they moved closer to the creature, Rick halted once more as the beast became apparent—it was a buck. It peaked out of the clearing, stepping into it completely as it feasted on the ground. The leader of the group smiled, looking down at his son. Shane aimed his gun at the innocent creature.
"Shane," Rick whispered. His friend looked back at him. It was instead Carl that stepped forward grinning ear to ear. He was slow to approach the buck. He glanced back at the adults, his eyes asking if he could touch it. Shane nodded.
The boy went on. There was a soft snapping, and the buck's ears perked up, looking straight at Carl. The men—they were happy. But Leah was paranoid. She felt queasy, assuming a Walker would stumble out from the brush and attack Carl.
But it never happened.
Carl was so close to the buck that he could touch it; he could feel the greasy, soft fur in his milky white fingers. He strained his arm out.
There was an unforeseen gunshot. The buck fell, crumpling to the forest floor as blood dripped from a hole in its neck. Carl fell backwards as the bullet penetrated through the animal, lodging into the boy's chest in multiple shards. Blood seeped out of his chest, staining his green shirt.
"Oh no," Rick whispered. "No… No. No. No!"
The adults ran forward. Rick clutched his son to his chest, screaming profusely. Shane scanned the woods for the attacker, and Leah just watched as the moment unfolded.