Better Angels and Beside the Dying Fire
The next morning we buried Dale next to Shawn and Annette. After Shane, Andrea, T-Dog and Daryl went out on patrol. Once they came back Hershel said we could move into the house. I was helping Carl pack the tent and the stuff inside it. Once we were done Carl and I were walking to the house with the bags. Mom, Carl, dad and I were gonna sleep in Hershel's room. Carol and Sophia were sharing with Beth. Andrea was sharing with Maggie. The rest of the boys were gonna sleep downstairs in the living room.
"You gonna go drop off Randall?" I asked when Daryl stepped out of the bathroom.
"Yep. Might not make it back till nightfall. Your dad's plannin' on bringing him out to Senoia." Daryl answered before walking down the hallway.
"What? No kiss goodbye?" I questioned.
He turned around and raised his eyebrows before walking back over to me and kissing my cheek. I glared at him before grabbing onto his vest and kissing his lips. We went on for a few minutes before I pulled back, "See you tonight."
I left to go find mom when I heard yelling. Apparently Randall escaped.
"What's wrong?" Mom asked.
"Randall's missin'." I answered.
"Missing? How?"
"How long has he been gone?" Hershel asked.
"It's hard to say."
"The cuffs are still hooked. He must've slipped 'em." Dad said.
"Is that possible?" Carol asked.
"It is if you've got nothing to lose." Andrea answered.
"The door was secure from the outside." Hershel said.
"Rick! Rick!"
I looked over from where the yelling was coming from. It was Shane. And he was bloody.
"What happened?"
"He's armed." Shane said, running up to the group. "He's got my gun."
"Are you okay?" Carl asked.
"I'm fine. Little bastard just snuck up on me. He clocked me in the face." Shane answered.
"Alright, Hershel, T-Dog, get everybody back in the house. Glenn, Daryl, come with us." Dad ordered.
"Let him go. That was the plan, wasn't it? To let him go?" Carol asked.
"The plan was to cut him loose far away from here, not on our front step with a gun." Shane answered.
"Don't go about there. Y'all know what can happen." Carol said.
"Get everybody back in the house." Dad said as they walked off. "Lock all the doors and stay put."
"Go keep watch upstairs, okay?" I told Carl.
He nodded and ran up the steps.
Sophia and Carol were sitting on a chair and Hershel and Maggie were setting up the beds. Mom was pacing and T-Dog and I were looking out the windows. After a while we all just sat down and waited in silence.
"I'm going after them." Andrea said.
"Don't. They could be anywhere." Mom replied. "And if Randall comes back we're gonna need you here."
The door opened and Glenn and Daryl walked in.
"Rick and Shane ain't back?" Daryl asked.
"No." I answered.
"We heard a shot."
"Maybe they found Randall." Mom replied.
"We found him." Daryl said.
"Is he back in the shed?" Maggie asked.
"He's a walker." Daryl answered.
"Did you find the walker that bit him?" Hershel questioned.
"No, weird thing is he wasn't bit." Glenn replied.
"His neck was broke." Daryl said.
"So he fought back."
"The thing is, Shane and Randall's tracks were right on top of each other. And Shane ain't no tracker, so he didn't come up behind him. They were together. " Daryl said.
"Would you please get back out there, find Rick and Shane and find what on earth is going on?" Mom asked Daryl.
"You got it."
"Thank you."
I looked back out the boarded up window, "Holy shit."
"What?" Andrea asked.
"Outside." I said before running out onto the porch with Daryl, Andrea, and Glenn.
"Patricia, kill the lights." Hershel said when the others came out.
"I'll get the guns." Andrea said.
"Maybe they're just passing, like the herd on the highway. Should we just go inside?" Glenn asked.
"Not unless there's a tunnel downstairs I don't know about. A herd that size would rip the house down." Daryl answered.
I ran inside and got my bow and arrows before going back outside.
"Carl's gone." Mom said, coming outside.
"What?"
"He was upstairs. I can't find him anymore." Mom replied.
"Maybe he's hiding." Glenn suggested.
"He's supposed to be upstairs, I told him to look out." I said.
"I'm not leaving without my boy." Mom said.
"We're not." Carol said, her hand's on Sophia's shoulders, "We're gonna look again. We're gonna find him."
Maggie and Andrea came back out with the gun bag and I grabbed mine.
"Maggie." Glenn said when she handed him a gun.
"You grow up country, you pick up a thing or two." Maggie replied.
"I got the number, it's no use." Daryl said.
"You can go if you want." Hershel replied.
"You gonna take 'em all on?" Daryl asked.
"We have guns. We have cars."
"Kill as many as we can, and we'll use the cars to lead the rest of them off the farm." Andrea said.
"Are you serious?" Daryl asked.
"This is my farm. I'll die here." Hershel told Daryl.
"All right. It's as good a night as any." Daryl said before jumping over the railing and helping me down. We ran to his motorcycle and we drove toward the fence when we saw that the barn was on fire.
We started shooting the walkers coming toward the fence. Once too many walkers got too close Daryl drove over to Jimmy who was in the RV.
"Yo! Must've been Rick or Shane who started that fire. Maybe they're tryin' to get out back! Why don't you circle 'round?" Daryl asked.
"Got it!" Jimmy replied before driving toward the barn.
We drove around, shooting as many walkers as we could.
"Ready to get out of here?" Daryl asked.
"Yeah." I answered.
I wrapped my arms around his waist as we drove down the dirt roads that had a lot of walkers on them. None of them were fast enough to grab us.
"We should go back to the highway! Maybe the others are there!" I yelled.
"Alright!" Daryl yelled back.
It was daylight when we saw a green Hyundai. Daryl drove faster and got in front of it. Awhile later I looked behind me when there was a honk and saw T-Dog's blue truck. Soon enough we were back where we were at the highway. Good thing was, I saw Hershel's red truck. I was able to see Hershel, Dad, Carl, Carol, and Sophia. Once Daryl stopped the bike I jumped off and ran over to hug Dad and Carl.
"Oh, thank god!" I heard.
I turned around and mom ran over to us and hugged us.
"Where'd you find everyone?" Dad asked once we stopped hugging and I went over by Daryl again.
"Well, those guys' tail lights zigzagging all over the road-figured it had to be an asian drivin' like that." Daryl answered.
"Good one." Glenn replied.
"Where's the rest of us?" I asked.
"We're the only ones who made it so far." Dad answered.
We were missing Patricia, Jimmy, Shane, and Andrea.
"Shane?" Mom asked.
Dad shook his head. So I guess we're just missing Patricia, Jimmy, and Andrea.
"Andrea?" Glenn questioned.
"She saved me then I lost her." Carol said.
"We saw her go down." T-Dog replied.
Then just Patricia and Jimmy.
"Patricia?"
"They got her too, took her right in front of me. I was, I was holdin' onto her, daddy. She just-" Beth couldn't finish as she sobbed into her dad's chest. "What about Jimmy? Did you see Jimmy?"
"He was in the RV. It got overrun." Dad answered and Beth let out a sob again.
Okay, so we weren't missing anyone.
"You defiantly saw Andrea?" Carol asked.
"There were walkers everywhere." Mom replied.
"Did you see her?" Carol asked T-Dog.
"I'm gonna go back." Daryl said when he didn't answer.
"No."
"We can't just leave her." Daryl replied.
"We don't even know if she's there." Mom said.
"She isn't there. She isn't. She's somewhere else or she's dead. There's no way to find her." Dad responded.
"So we're not even gonna look for her?" Glenn questioned.
"We gotta keep moving. There have been walkers crawling all over here." Dad answered.
"I say head east." T-Dog said.
"Stay off the main roads. The bigger the road, the more walkers, more assholes like this one. I got him." Daryl said as he grabbed his crossbow and shot the walker in the eye.
Hershel, Maggie, Beth, T-Dog, and Glenn got into the green Hyundai and Mom, dad, Carl, Sophia, and Carol got into Hershel's truck and I went with Daryl on his brother's motorcycle.
We were driving for about two hours when the red truck honked and we pulled over. We all got out of the vehicles and turned toward dad.
"You out?" Daryl asked.
"Running on fumes." Dad replied.
"We can't stay here." Maggie said.
"We can't all fit in one car."
"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning." Dad said.
"And spend the night here?" Carol asked.
"I'm freezing." Carl said.
"We'll build a fire, yeah?" Mom replied.
"You go out lookin' for firewood, stay close." Daryl said. "Only got so many arrows. How you doin' on ammo?"
"Not enough." Dad answered.
"We can't just sit here with our asses hangin' out." Maggie said.
"Watch your mouth." Hershel replied, "Everyone stop panickin' and listen to Rick."
"All right, we'll set up a perimeter. In the morning we'll find some gas and supplies. We'll keep pushing on."
"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and scrounge up some gas." Maggie suggested.
"No, we stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car." Dad responded.
"Dad, we're stranded now." I said.
"I know it looks bad, we've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other. I wasn't sure, I really wasn't, but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place." Dad replied.
"Rick, look around. Okay? There's walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something." Glenn said.
"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but that we fortify, hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other." Dad responded. "I know it's out there. We just have to find it."
"Even if we do find a place and we think it's safe, we can never be sure. For how long? Look what happened with the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that that was safe." Maggie said.
"We won't make that mistake again." Hershel replied.
"We'll make camp tonight over there," Dad said, looking at some stone walls, "Get on the road at the break of day."
"What if walkers come through, or another group like Randall's?" Beth asked dad.
"You know I found Randall, right? He had turned, but he wasn't bit." Daryl told dad,
"How's that possible?"
"Rick, what the hell happened?" Mom asked.
"Shane killed Randall. Just like he always wanted to." Daryl said.
"And then the herd got him?" Mom questioned.
"We're all infected." Dad said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"What?"
"At the CDC, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it." Dad replied.
"And you never said anything?" Carol asked.
"Would it have made a difference?" Dad replied.
"You knew this whole time?"
"How could I have known for sure? You saw how crazy that mo-" Dad began.
"That isn't your call. Okay, when I found out about the walkers in the barn, I told, for the good of everyone." Glenn interrupted.
"Well, I thought it best that people didn't know." Dad replied before walking off and mom followed.
That night I saw sitting next to Daryl as he put sticks into the fire.
"I think we should take our chances." Maggie said.
"Don't be foolish." Hershel replied, "There's no food, no fuel, no ammo."
A branched snapped a few yards away.
"What was that?" Beth asked.
"Could be anythin'. Could be a raccoon. Could be a possum." Daryl answered, standing up and taking his crossbow off his back.
"Walker."
"We need to leave. What are we waiting for?" Carol asked.
"Which way?" Glenn asked.
"It came from over there." Maggie answered, looking past dad.
"Back from where we came." Beth finished.
"The last thing we need is for everyone to be running off in the dark. We don't have vehicles. No one's traveling on foot." Dad said.
A branched snapped again and I grabbed my gun.
"Don't panic."
"I'm not sittin' here, waitin' for another herd to blow through. We need to move, now." Maggie replied.
"No one is going anywhere." Dad said,
"Do something." Carol told dad, holding onto to Sophia's shoulders.
"I am doing something." Dad whispered harshly, "I'm keeping this group together, alive. I've been doing that all along, no matter what. I didn't ask for this. I killed my best friend for you people, for christ's sake!"
We were all silent.
"You all saw what he was like, how he pushed me, how he compromised us, how he threatened us. He staged the whole Randall thing, led me out to put a bullet in my back. He gave me no choice. He was my best friend, but he came after me."
I watched as Carl hugged mom tightly, crying into her chest.
"My hands are clean," Dad finished. "Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead. I say there's a place for us, but maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't you go and find out yourself? Send me a postcard."
None of us moved from out positions.
"Go on, there's the door. You can do better? Let's see how far you get."
We all looked around at each other, waiting for something to happen.
"No takers? Fine. But get one thing straight- you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."
Looking at all of us, dad left without another word.