Sorry this took so long! I have been on vacation with my family and anytime I tried to sit down and write, they would practically murder me. I am no longer on vacation, so there should be updates more often!
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Princess' POV:
"Do you think that we'll find her?" Carl asked me from where I sat next to him on the bed. His color was slowly returning, but he was still stuck in a bed.
"I know we'll find her. The real question is in what condition are we going to find her." I said glumly. There were a few minutes of silence as Carl petted Blade.
"I bet she's stuck up a tree like you and she's just waiting for me or you to find her." Carl said, trying to cheer me up. I gave him a halfhearted smile. "When I can walk again, will you show me how you killed that squirrel?" I chuckled and laughed, causing Carl to give me a smile. "My father told me that they had found her already." Carl said. He didn't sound too upset or angry. Just like he was stating a fact.
"He probably didn't want to upset you or worry you while you rested. Wanted to make sure you were healthy again and could take it. It's only cause he loves you. It's something Marcus and Rachel would do for me, too." I said. "But I hate it went people sugar coat shit to me. I'd rather they give it to me straight. I may be young, but I haven't been a weak, little baby in a long time. People lying just pisses me off."
"Yeah. Me too. I promise I wont ever sugar coat the truth to you if you promise not to do it to me. And we got to tell each other if we know someone else has done it to the other." Carl stuck out his hand. I nodded and grabbed a hold of his pinky. There was a short pause. "Do your siblings let you cus?" Carl asked. I laughed and shook my head.
"They don't, but that doesn't mean Marcus watches his own mouth around me. He was in the navy after all." Carl and I both laughed quietly.
"Alright, Princess. Time to let Carl rest." Hershel said. I nodded, waving goodbye to Carl as Blade curled up next to him to sleep. I jogged outside to Rachel as her, Glenn, Maggie, Lori, Andrea, T-dog, and Shane walked out toward the water spigot. We walked up to the well and looked inside. There was a fat walker that looked like it was decomposing in the water. Rachel pulled me back a little when I leaned over the edge.
"Looks like we've got a swimmer." Dale said as he shined a flash light down on it.
"How long do you think it's been down there?" Glenn asked from where I stood next to him.
"Long enough to grow gills." Andrea commented. Can we even drink this water anymore? I don't think I would want to drink this water even if it were just a human standing in it.
"We can't leave it in there. God knows what it's doing to the water." Lori commented.
"We got to get it out." Shane commented. How do we do that? I glanced at Rachel who was on my other side, but she was looking at T-dog out of the corner of her eye, her cheeks blushing slightly.
"Easy. Put a bullet in its head. I'll get a rope." T-dog answered. I nudged Rachel, quirking an eyebrow once she finally looked at me. She just blushed a little more in response.
"Whoa, whoa, guys. No." Maggie said, causing all of us to look at her in confusion.
"Why not? It's a good plan." Glenn asked.
"It's a stupid plan." Andrea snapped. Jeez, what crawled up her butt and died? "If that thing hasn't contaminated the water yet, blowing its brains out will finish the job."
"She's right. Can't risk it." Shane commented, looking down at the walker as we continued to brainstorm.
"So it has to come out alive?" T-dog asked. This situation reminded me of when some livestock fell into a well.
"So to speak." Shane answered.
"How do we do that?" Glenn asked. Everyone stayed quiet for a minute.
"What if we loop the rope around it and then pull it up." I commented. Everyone turned to me in surprise. I looked to Rachel. "Like we did when Uncle Grady's donkey fell down into the well on his farm."
"Problem with that is that someone would have to go down to loop the rope around the walker." Rachel said.
"So we send someone down on a rope that the rest of us can easily pull up." T-dog reasoned.
"That would be Glenn, Maggie, Rachel, or Princess." Shane said while giving Glenn a pointed look.
"I'll do it, but wont it go straight for me once it see's me?" Glenn asked, looking at everyone.
"We could distract it while he goes down." I said.
"With what?" Andrea asked. You know how people have a resting bitch face? Well I'm pretty sure Andrea had a resting bitch voice. Her voice just always sounded bitchy and pissed off.
"Meat." Dale said, sending Maggie a pointed look.
"I'll go check the fridge, see what we can spare." Maggie answered, running off toward the house. A few seconds later she was back with a huge chunk of ham, the squirrel I had killed, and a fishing rod. "Figured we could lower the meat with this." Shane quickly began to tie the ham and squirrel to the fishing line.
"Princess, you ever been fishin'?" Shane asked me. I nodded enthusiastically. "What about fishing for walkers?"
"Not yet, but I bet it's easier than fishing for fish." I smirked. Shane chuckled at me as he passed over the fishing rod.
"Alright, lower it slowly." I did as he said, but the walker seemed to ignore it, barely even glanced at it.
"He's not going for it." Dale said from my left. Shane pulled the rope back up from my other side.
"Maybe 'casue a canned ham don't kick and scream when you try to eat it." T-dog said lowly.
"He's right. There's a reason the dead didn't come back to life and start raiding our cupboards." Lori spoke up as I pulled the meat back out.
"We need live bait." Andrea spoke up. We all turned to look at Glenn. Glenn sighed and nodded his hand. He took off his baseball cap, throwing it on my head. He sat on the edge of the well as Shane tied the rope around him.
"Have I mentioned that I really like your new haircut? You have a nice shaped head." Glenn rambled nervously. I passed Glenn the flashlight.
"Don't worry about it, bud. We're gonna get you out of here in one piece." Shane assured him as everyone grabbed a piece of the rope that Glenn was tied to.
"Living piece. The living part is important." Glenn told him. Shane handed Glenn the looped end of the rope that was going to go around the walker, and the other end to me. "Nice and slow, please."
"Oh, you people are crazy." Maggie muttered from where she stood off to a short distance.
"You want to get it out of your well or not?" Shane asked her. "Princess you hold onto that end of the rope and make sure it doesn't fall into the well."
"Give us an eye there, Maggie." Dale asked. Maggie joined my side as we both watched Glenn, me slowly feeding the walker rope down as he went.
"Doing okay?" Maggie asked worriedly. Glenn sent us a kind of crazy looking smile.
"Yup, doing great." He responded cheerfully. He was totally scared and trying to impress Maggie. "Living the dream." He muttered quietly.
"Little lower. Little more." Maggie told them. Glenn was almost there when the water spigot broke, causing his rope to drop down quite a bit. Maggie rushed over to grab the rope as everyone screamed in panic. I stayed rooted where I was, holding the walker rope as I watched Glenn drop even further as the spigot broke completely off.
"Get me out of here!" Glenn screamed. T-dog was the main person holding onto the rope as everyone else clamored around him to help pull it. "Get off! Get me out!" They finally managed to grab onto the rope and begin pulling him up. As soon as Glenn reached the top I grabbed his arm, along with a few others and helped pull him out of the well. We all stood around panting as we check to see if Glenn was ok.
"Back to the drawing board." Dale said solemnly. Glenn stood up slowly, still panting.
"Says you. Princess, you still got your end of the walker rope?" I nodded and handed the rope to Glenn, who passed it onto Dale. The rest rushed forward to see that Glenn had managed to loop the walker as planned. Glenn gave me a high five as he continued to pant. "Teamwork." He said out of breath. I giggled. After a quick breather, we all grabbed onto the rope and began to start pulling up the walker.
"Come one, guys, pull." T-dog encouraged. We seemed to have a lot more trouble pulling up the walker than Glenn, despite the fact that we had a horse to help us pull it up. It was probably because the walker was so fat. T-dog and I stayed at the well as we watched it get pulled over. Once it finally got to the top, T-dog and I stepped back, coughing at the smell of the walkers decaying body. The smell was so bad it caused me to gag. The walker was almost all the way out as it snarled and reached for T-dog and I, but the belt seemed to get stuck on the side of the well.
"It's stuck!" I yelled out. They began pulling harder. I took a step toward it to try and make it where the walker wasn't caught, but the walker tore into two pieces. The top half got dragged by the horse and the bottom fell back into the well. The top half continued to try and come toward us, but it just grabbed at thin air. We stared at the walker with disdain.
"We should seal off this well." Dale spoke up as we all continued to glare at the walker.
"Yeah, might be a good idea." Shane conceited as he scratched his head.
"So what do we do about…" Andrea trailed off as T-dog beat in the walker's skull with a crow bar.
"Good thing we didn't do anything stupid like shoot it." T-dog sassed. Rachel and I chuckled as Glenn snatched his baseball cap back from my head.
Marcus' POV:
Daryl and I walked quietly as we followed the trail. We had been searching for hours, and there were no trace of Sophia. Daryl and I hadn't talked yet, aside from yelling out Sophia's name every now and then. We just motioned and followed the other around as we looked. We didn't really need to talk. We were both trained hunters and could tell what the other was signaling.
"Why'd you come with? Your sister's already been found." Daryl asked as we paused for a drink of water, finally breaking the few hours of silence.
"Princess asked me to." I shrugged, like that would explain everything. Daryl gave me a look that seemed to be studying me.
"You always do what your little sisters tell you to?" He asked. I thought it over as I stuffed the water back into my pocket.
"Yeah, actually. I usually do." I confessed. Daryl snorted as we started walking. There were a few more beats of silence. "She blames herself for Sophia getting lost. So if we find her, then she has nothing to beat herself up over anymore." I explained. Daryl didn't say anything else as we continued in our search. We came upon a clearing with an old house in it. Daryl and I drew our weapons out as we crept forward. We slowly and quietly check each room. They were all empty. Daryl looked in a garbage can to see a freshly opened can of sardines. He slowly checked the cupboard. There was a pallet in the bottom of it. We walked out the back door.
"Sophia!" Daryl called out. We looked around the back, but there was nothing there. Daryl paused at the sight of a white flower. "Cherokee rose." Daryl muttered.
"I call it a dogwood." I muttered. Daryl looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world.
"This aint no dogwood." He grumbled out as he picked the flower from the stem and carefully placed it in his pocket.
"I know that. I said I call it a dogwood. Not that it was one." Daryl rolled his eyes at me. "What's with the flower in your pocket? Aren't we a little old to be going to prom together?" Daryl rolled his eyes at me before moving back into the forest. I chuckled softly.