Chapter 25 "Run"
Days 90 & 91; Group A
The gardeners had drove for a long time, far away from the house and the herd, driving directly south. "We must be twenty miles away, Allan!" Patricia complained "We passed Bunker like an hour ago."
"Patricia's right," Beth chimed in. "We need to turn around."
"Turn around?" Allan mocked. "There's no chance in hell we're turning around. We gotta run."
"Run? We don't have to keep going. Can we stop?" Beth asked, very annoyed. "We're in the clear. The others could be following us, and if we keep going, they might never find us."
Allan sighed. He knew she was right. He kept driving for a while until they made it to a small log cabin. He slowed and pulled up in front of it. "We can wait here, then. Few days, maybe."
"A few days?" Mika said, sounding sad and scared. She hadn't stayed anywhere but the house they had just been ran out of for months, and she hated clearing out houses. A lot of people she was with had died clearing out houses, such as Amber and Rex and Dante. "Can't we just stay in the RV?"
Allan frowned. He knew what Mika was afraid of, vividly remembering his friends dying to walkers because of having to clear out houses. If something like that happened here, it would be devastating. There was only five of them, and besides himself, none of the others were exactly the types of people he'd have clear a house. "I'm not sure about that, Mika. What do you guys say?"
"There's pros and cons on both sides," Lyrik said, running both options through her mind. "If we stay in the RV, we won't be outside risking our lives and if something happens we could easily just take off. We'd be easily spotted, though. If someone — or the walkers — are strong or angry enough, they could easily tip us over and we'd be dead."
"If we took the house, though, we'd have to clear it," Allan began. "It could be holding a number of things. Walkers, traps, and even other people. But if we all make it, it'd be great. Warm, and probably safe. We'd have more space and support."
"How about we vote?" Beth suggested. "All who want to clear the house, raise your hand." Allan and Lyrik raised their hands. "All opposed." Mika, Beth, and Patricia raised their hands.
Allan shrugged and drove farther down the road until he found a place surrounded thinly by trees, not too far off the road and they parked there, where they stayed for the night.
On Day 91, Mika woke up early in the morning, screaming from an awful nightmare, waking up Beth and Lyrik, who were on either side of her in the bed. Patricia was up front sleeping on the couch, while Allan slept on the floor beside her.
"Mika, shhh," Beth whispered. "It's okay, you're okay. I'm here, you're okay."
Beth wrapped her arms around the girl, who was sobbing into her chest. "Now I really wish we had some coffee," Lyrik joked, but Beth flashed her an warning face. She raised her hands and rolled over in response, hoping to be able to get some more sleep.
"Mommy, I had a really bad dream," the girl said, surprising Beth.
"Mika, I'm… I'm not your mommy." Mika pulled back from Beth, her face full of fear.
"I-it wasn't a dream…" Mika said, saying it like a question.
"I'm sorry," Beth said, pulling her back into her arms. "I know, cupcake. It's hard. But we'll make it. I'm here for you. No matter what, I'm here for you."
"You promise?" Mika asked, a muffled sob.
"I promise."
Later that day, Allan had done a sweep around the area they were in, checking their surroundings in the morning light. He had found another, smaller house to the south and a river about a mile west. Patricia and Lyrik went down to the river that afternoon to get water to boil on the fire, having finished off the remaining water from their watering cans. They were both armed with a machete and a gun.
"Mika's not okay," Lyrik said after they both made sure there were no walkers around and they were bent over at the river.
"Well, can you expect her to be? She's ten years old, just lost her sister, and for all she knows her dad is dead, too. The only one of us she really knows that well is Allan, and she doesn't seem that close with him."
"She's got Beth," the black girl shrugged.
"Yeah," Patricia said, putting down a water bottle and picking up another. "She does. I think if Beth wasn't here, that little girl would be lost."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean she'd be a goner. Shut down completely. I don't know if she'd really think about it, but she might even kill herself if she felt bad enough."
Lyrik nodded her head grimly, switching out bottles. "So do you think anybody made it out of there?"
The old woman sighed as she put a cap on her last water bottle. "For our sake, I hope so." She looked to the sunset, thinking about Otis. "Realistically, probably not."