Dad calls me away from my butterfly hunt after a couple of minutes, and we walk back towards the camp, him and me and Carol. Only we don't go to the camp, because when we're close enough, we can see people on the porch and around the porch of the house, and so we go there instead. We reach the steps just a little after T-Dog and Andrea do, and I catch Andrea saying, I think to Glenn, ". . . off with Hershel. We were supposed to leave a couple hours ago."

My dad hears this, too. I know because he picks up his pace right away and says, "Yeah, you were. What the hell?"

"Rick told us he was goin' out," Carol says. Yes, Rick was going to look for Sophia. With Andrea. Why –

"Damn it – isn't anybody takin' this seriously?" Dad sort of shouts, and I don't think he thinks people aren't, not really, but I can tell he hates not being out there himself and for a moment I feel guilty but then I remember Dad told me I was right to tell Carol. Now Dad's swinging his arm out to the distance. "We got us a damn trail!"

He means because of the doll he found, the doll that tells us where Sophia's been. I scan the faces here. Maggie's standing by Glenn, watching my dad with a concerned expression, and up on the porch Carl and Beth and Patricia seem to be playing some sort of board game that I guess we've interrupted. Maybe I should –

"Ah. Here we go."

That was Dad and I turn to him, but he's walking towards a figure stalking up here now, loaded with a bag. Shane. He has a gun in his hand, a long gun . . . but I thought we weren't supposed to have guns here? And as Shane moves closer, I see the bag he's carrying is the gun bag itself. The gun bag Dale usually keeps in the RV . . . Has Hershel changed his mind?

Shane reaches Dad. "What's all this?" Dad asks, and in answer, Shane tosses the gun – it's a shotgun, I can see now – from one hand to the other and holds it out to my dad.

"You with me, man?"

With him? With him how? What are they going to do?

But Dad, Dad must know, because he says yeah, takes the gun, pumps it. Meanwhile Shane walks deeper into the group, announcing that it's time to grow up, asking Andrea if she already has her gun, and she does and I don't know why, and where's Dale? Andrea asks, and Shane says he's on his way, which is good, because maybe things will start making a little more sense once Dale's here, things tend to do that. Dad, Dad follows Shane past me and touches my head on his way, but that's not any sort of explanation, and –

And it dawns on me. The guns, Shane's stony face.

The walkers. The walkers in the barn.

That's the only possible reason, that's the only thing that makes sense . . .

Shane's speaking, loudly, to all of us. "Look, it was one thing sittin' around here pickin' daisies when we thought this place was s'posed to be safe, but now we know it ain't!"

He's right, he's right, of course he's right, didn't I decide that just this morning? That I wanted these walkers gone? I glance at the barn, then the gun bag, and a sense of unease fills me but I drown it the same way I did back when Dad would take me fishing and I had to stab a worm with a hook.

Shane's handing a shotgun to Glenn. "How 'bout you, man? You gonna protect yours?"

And Glenn, Glenn doesn't look so sure, for just a second. His eyes go to Maggie, I think, because they're friends and Maggie looks upset right now, but then Glenn takes the gun anyway, in an almost angry sort of movement.

Shane turns to Maggie. "Can you shoot?"

"Can you stop?" she snaps back. "You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight!"

Leave? Leave the farm? No. Not if we kill the walkers. Not if we kill the walkers.

"We have to stay, Shane." And that's Carl, Carl coming down the steps, Beth and Patricia are standing behind him looking scared, and Carl's wearing his dad's hat and staring hard at Shane. He ends up standing beside me, and suddenly my mouth's moving.

"He's right, we can't leave Sophia." My eyes are on Carl when I say this, and for a moment, I'm remembering back to when we sort-of worked together to get the weapons from that body in the truck on the highway.

Shane nods at us, at both us. "We ain't goin' anywhere, okay? Now, look –" He's using his loud, whole-group voice again – "Hershel, he's just gotta understand, okay? He – well, he's gonna have to. Now we need to find Sophia, am I right?" Here my eyes snap to Carol, but Shane, Shane moves to Carl, kneels right in front of him. "Now I want you to take this." And he's holding out a gun, a little pistol, he's holding it out to Carl, to Carl, and what is he thinking?"You take it, Carl, and you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes, you know how, go on, take the gun and do it –"

And then Lori's there, in between Carl and me, pressing her son back and hissing at Shane, teeth bared and everything. "Rick said no guns. This is not your call. This is not your decision to make."

"Oh, shit."

And everybody's head turns to T-Dog. He's far to the right and looking over at the barn, the barn that's causing so much trouble. But I quickly realize he's not talking about the barn. No, he's talking about what's appearing from the woods beside it – Rick and Hershel and that boy Jimmy, and they're holding, they're holding walkers, walkers, living and moving walkers on sticks, and I barely have time to gasp before Shane's running, running right towards them, and then so's my dad, and then then we all are, my people and Hershel's people, we're running, down from the house, through a gate that Shane bangs open, right up to the barn, right up to where Rick and Hershel are bringing the things, like dogs on stiff leashes, dogs trying to kill you, to kill you and eat you. Jimmy moves along, guiding them? I don't know, I just –

Walkers, for God's sake!

"What the hell're you doin'?" barks Shane when he's close enough. I think that's what he says, anyway, I'm a little far away still because Shane's so much faster, but I know Rick says something back and then my legs have brought me close enough to hear Hershel ask why we have guns, and Shane asks, "Are you kidding me?" as he slows and walks around the three men and the two walkers, two walkers who used to be a man and a woman, who are now being held just feet from Rick and Hershel by Rick and Hershel themselves and the geeks, they're thrashing and snarling and reaching out bony, hungry fingers –

"You see?" Shane yells just as I'm slowing down, breathing hard, trying to work out how this could be happening, and I move to my dad and his shotgun. "You see what they're holdin' onto?"

"I see who I'm holding onto!" answers Hershel, his eyes on the walker, focusing on keeping the used-to-be woman restrained, but it's fighting, it's fighting hard.

"Nah, man, you don't!" Shane's made a full circle around the crazy group but he doesn't seem to be slowing. He's worked up, Shane. And I can't blame him.

"Shane," Rick says over the walker sounds, watching his geek, arms straining on the metal stick he has the creature hooked to, "Just let us do this, and then we can talk!"

Dad has his shotgun up now, aimed at the walker Rick has. That makes me feel better, but I'm still . . . I'm still scared. And mad at Rick for letting this happen, for doing this himself, because this is all so wrong in so many different ways, walkers are bad, they're bad . . .

Shane agrees with me, Shane's right, he's right. "What you wanna talk about, Rick? These things ain't sick! They're not people! They're dead! Ain't gotta feel nothin' for 'em , 'cause all they do? They kill!"

– my dad yelling at my mom, me sneaking into the living room, my dad telling me to get back to bed, me seeing my mother's arm, the gashes, Mom pushing Dad away and coming over to me, telling me it's okay, but it wasn't okay, it wasn't, and it's not, not at all, it will never be okay what they did to her and Dad and me, my family and my life –

My throat tightens and air doesn't come easy, my fists form, my feet dig into the ground here on this farm, so far away from home, the home that I'll never see again, the mother I don't have anymore –

"They're the things that killed Amy!" Shane's screaming here on this farm. "They killed Otis!"

Amy. Otis. Jim. All the people that night of the fish fry and Nana and Papaw and Tyler and my mother, my mother, my mother.

"Shane, shut up!" Rick roars.

No, Shane. No, Shane. You are right.

And me? Me, Sydney Rose Dixon? I want a gun. I want a gun. I want a damn gun so I can point it at these things and I can –

Shane's gun is out now, his handgun, what's he saying to Hershel? ". . . a living, breathin' person, could they walk away from this?"

"No!" Rick yells as Shane's gun fires and the walker Hershel is holding, the used-to-be woman, takes the bullets, but not to the head, to the chest, and the walker, it flails around for a minute but then it's back to normal, growling, wanting to kill, kill, that's all they do –

"That's three rounds to the chest!" says Shane. "Could someone who's alive, could they just take that? Why is it still coming?"

I move forward, closer, right behind Glenn and his gun because my dad's moved off with Rick, and I watch as Hershel's walker takes more bullets, as blood splatters around, as the walker keeps going like nothing happened, because they're not human, not alive, not at all.

That's its heart, Shane says, its lungs. He asks again why it's still coming, he shoots it some more, and Rick, Rick yells That's enough.

And Shane, Shane says he's right. He steps up to the walker. And his voice is deep and strangled as he says, "That is enough."

One more shot, right in the brain. The geek finally falls, dead, really dead. Like it should be.

I didn't even get to say goodbye to my mother. My uncle dragged me away. And my mom had a pistol, this pistol –

Hershel's dropped that metal stick thing, the thing he was holding the walker with. It falls beside the corpse, a wire at the end of the stick still around the neck. Hershel, Hershel goes to his knees. I can't see his face. I'm sure he's upset. That's not important. Killing that walker, it had to be done.

"Enough," says Shane, pacing around in front of the barn doors now, "risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!"

What? That stops me short. But what about what he said to Carl and me, just a minute ago? I yank my head around, find Carl, holding his mother's hand, and his face, his face -

But that's not important right now, either. Can't stop short like that, gotta keep going, gotta start this and finish it off, finish them off. The barn, the barn, it needs to be cleared. The walkers need to be put down, hurry up, Shane . . .

"Enough living next to a barn full of things that are tryin' to kill us!"

Yes, yes.

"Enough! Rick, it ain't like it was before!"

Rick's still holding onto his walker. My dad's still got the shotgun trained on its head, and I wish, I wish he'd just shoot the damn thing.

"Now if y'all wanna live," says Shane, "if you wanna survive, you gotta fight for it! I'm talkin' 'bout fightin'! Right here . . . right now." And then Shane turns and runs to the barn doors.

Where's the gun bag? Where's the gun bag? I need a gun, I need – but the bag's nowhere to be found –

"Hershel!" Rick's saying, shaking the stick and the walker. "Hershel, take the snare pole! Hershel! Listen to me, man, please –"

But Hershel's still on the ground, his hands loose at his sides.

Rick sounds so desperate. "Take it now! Hershel! Take it!"

The old man doesn't move. No one else does, either.

And Shane, Shane's going at the door. He's got a pickaxe from the wall, he's banging at the lock.

Rick yells for him not to do it. Pleads. So does Glenn. Lori shouts Rick's name. Shane doesn't stop. My hand goes to my waist, it finds my knife, and I don't pull it out, but I'm ready. I crouch down. And if one of them gets to me, if one of those goddamn killers, one of those bastards that killed my mom – my beautiful mom who cooked and smelled like flowers – if one of them gets to me, I will kill it. I will not think twice. I will kill it and I will –

The lock breaks. Rick shouts please. Shane takes off the panel of wood keeping the doors closed. He tosses it down, he bangs on one door, he says come on, he backs off, he takes his gun out again, Rick begs some more, Maggie's hugging her father, Lori's still screaming for Rick, I get in one more glance at my dad, and then there's an arm on me and it's Lori, pulling me back, back with her and Carl, and she says to get behind her but I shove her off, my eyes on the barn door, my hand on my knife, and then it happens, it begins. The doors are pushed open – not all the way because there's still a chain on them a ways up, but oh, enough, the doors open enough, and the walkers come out.

My dad, Andrea, T-Dog, they all move forward. Then the shots start. I think Shane shoots first, which is fitting. The first walker to fall is in overalls, like the walker that came after T-Dog and me on the highway. I lose track then of which walker dies at what point. Because after the first one there's just a lot of shooting and a lot of snarls and a lot of blood and a lot of dead, dead walkers, and there are so many, so many that stumble out of that barn. Glenn starts in, too, but it takes a nod from Maggie to move him forward, to make him aim in on the geeks. Rick, Rick never pulls his gun. Even after Shane turns and puts down the walker he has on his stick – his snare pole – Rick does not shoot. After his walker's down, Lori runs up to him, pulling Carl, and I come, too, I'm fine with being closer, I still have my knife, but Rick holds his hand out and makes us stop, yells Stay back!, and I look around him, I watch my dad, see as he shoots a used-to-be woman in a dress, blows the thing's evil brains right out. Lori and Carl crouch beside me, her holding her arms around him. I stand. I watch. It's bloody. But they're killers.

Then suddenly there are no more walkers coming out. Suddenly there are just a bunch of rotten corpses on the ground. Not about to hurt anyone else. Not about to kill any more mothers or sisters or husbands or anyone.

Guns are lowered. There's a stillness, a calm. The calm after the storm, I've heard that somewhere. I realize I'm panting, I realize my hand's still gripping my knife, or maybe gripping it again, I'm not sure, I wasn't paying much attention to me.

Somebody's sobbing. Beth. Jimmy's hugging her. And – and Dale's walking up behind us all. His eyes are wide. His mouth is open. But – but it had to be done, Dale. It had to be done, Beth, they are killers –

And then there's a growl. One more, I can barely hear it, but it's there. My eyes go back to the barn, to the partly-open doors, to the darkness inside. My hand tightens around my knife again, my eyes narrow, my heart hardens up against Dale's wide eyes and Beth's tears, because there's one more to put down. One more.

Through the barn doors, a shadow darkens the darkness even more, a thin little shadow. That shadow steps out and it's not a shadow anymore.

My fingers slip from my knife's hilt and the world doesn't move, not a bit, not at all, and my heart doesn't pound and my blood doesn't pump and everything, everything, everyone is still.

Because the walker is just a little taller than me. It has blonde hair. A rainbow shirt. Skinny arms, arms that come up to block the sun, arms that should be holding a doll a girl named Eliza Morales gave to a friend to say goodbye.

The arms fall, the eyes – cloudy and blank – focus in on one of us, on someone. The teeth bare. The growl comes again. A walker's growl. The growl of someone dead, dead, dead.

"Oh, God – oh, oh – Sophia!"

Carol runs past me and my dad catches her before she can go to the walker. The walker without a doll. My dad and Carol fall and he keeps his arm around her and she crumples into a mess and keeps sobbing for Sophia, Sophia.

The Walker Without a Doll moves forward. Its feet drag.

. . . . .

I creep closer to the animal, adjusting my grip on the knife, trying for the second time this morning to keep my steps quiet. The rabbit is crouching in the brush. I think maybe it's hurt, I can't believe it hasn't run off yet, unless it's just really unusually dumb.

"Sydney, don't," I hear Sophia plead from behind me.

. . . . .

Carl's crying.

The Walker Without a Doll steps through the bodies.

. . . . .

A cross-legged Sophia carefully settles the doll beside her and then slides the deck from its box. Her hands fumble as she shuffles, making me doubt she plays cards much. "Go Fish?" she asks Carl and me.

. . . . .

Carol wails.

The Walker Without a Doll keeps moving. It's getting closer to the group but no one moves an inch.

. . . . .

Dad's just got T-Dog to a very unsteady stand when there's a scream. A small, little scream, like from just a kid, a girl, and I look towards that scream and all I can think is Sophia.

. . . . .

Lori says don't watch.

Rick walks forward.

. . . . .

"It'da been better if it were me."

"If what were you?"

"If it'd been me and not Sophia. She's just a kid."

. . . . .

Rick draws his gun. He moves in between Andrea and Shane – Shane, who let the walkers out. Who wanted this. Who hasn't moved since the Walker Without a Doll came out of the shadows. Rick goes past him. The Walker Without a Doll gets closer. Never pausing. Never understanding anything. Dead.

Rick raises his gun.

– a Cherokee Rose in a beer bottle and a clean RV, a bandage under my father's ribs and a map of the woods, two strong arms wrapped around me and the words Only a mattera time, and a doll, a doll in tan arms and then in pale arms, then in T-Dog's hands and –

A gunshot.

Real.

Here, The Walker Without a Doll is no different from the others. Its head is blown back and red stuff flies out. Its legs crumple and its body hits the ground with the usual thump. But the other walkers didn't cause a mother to make a sound that tells you she's damaged beyond repair. The other walkers didn't change everything in the world when they dropped down. The other walkers were killers.

The Walker Without a Doll was a girl who once asked me not to kill a rabbit because it wasn't hurting anyone.