Chapter 25

Lily woke to the sun bright in the sky a cool breeze blowing in the window. She groaned and rolled out of the bed, stretching. Her throat was dry and her stomach rumbled.

After stepping into the bathroom to clean up a bit, she stepped out onto the covered porch to find Lori and Carl sitting in some chairs along with Andrea, Amy, Carol and Sophia. "Where is everyone?" Lily asked hesitantly.

Andrea smiled up at her warmly and patted the chair next to her. "Hey Lily! C'mon and sit with us. We saved a plate for you," and she looked to Amy who rose and went into a room to retrieve the plate.

Lily sat in the chair and looked around curiously. All the women there were smiling at her. Carol blushed a bit and nodded at Lily. "I want to thank you for the other night," she said softly. Lily blushed in turn and shrugged slightly. "No really, thank you. No one's ever stood up to Ed like that for me and Sophia. You're a brave young woman," and Carol wiped at a tear on her cheek.

Amy handed Lily the plate and sat down again beside Andrea. "Carol's right. You're a brave girl, Lily, and we're lucky to have you in our group," Andrea said, looking around at the other women. "We're hoping that you decide to stay with us." And at this the other women nodded.

Lily looked shyly over at Lori, feeling incredibly awkward. Lori blushed beet red and bit her lip. "Yeah, Lily. Shane," and here Lori stammered over the name, "Shane fooled all of us and especially me. I've known him as long as I've known Rick, from high school, and I never would have guessed he could act like he did," and she stammered to silence.

Lily raised her brows at this in surprise. Either Shane had just gone completely nuts or had a really dark side to him that no one had ever seen. She couldn't believe a normal person would just suddenly do the things to her and Rick and Lori without ever having shown signs of such evil before.

She cleared her throat and Sophia handed her a soda. She smiled at the girl and thanked her. She felt uncomfortable –she'd never had many girlfriends and sure hadn't had any since she'd run off with Jack all those years ago. Jack had insisted that they spend time with just his friends and had been possessive and jealous of any time she'd spent with anyone other than him. It had been less trouble to just keep to herself and shun any offers to hang out with any of the women they'd met through his friends or at shows.

She smiled tentatively again at the women. "Where's everyone else gone to?" she mumbled as she began to wolf down the canned ravioli and bread they'd given her.

Andrea seemed to have appointed herself the spokesperson of the other women. "Well, Rick and Glen and Merle and Daryl have gone off to explore what's around here. Dale and Martinez and Ed are keeping watch. And Jacqui and Mrs. Martinez-Marilyn- are keeping an eye on the Martinez kids in their room. The kids are younger and they were up most of the night with bad dreams and crying."

Lily nodded. "I'm surprised we all aren't having trouble sleeping," she mumbled.

Andrea began to ask Lily questions about where'd she grown up and how she'd met the Dixons. Lily told them about Jack and her being in the rodeo and that they'd met the Dixons at one of the rodeo shows and they had been nice enough to take care of her after Rick had found her. Lily noticed Lori again blushing furiously and fidgeting in her chair even though Lily had left out any mention of Shane or his doings. Her mention of being a rider in the rodeo got Carl's and Sophia's interest and she spent some time regaling the group with rodeo stories as well as promising to show them some roping tricks when they got somewhere safer.

Midafternoon the men came back to the motor court. Lori ran over to Rick eagerly and Merle, Daryl and Glen ambled on over to the rest of the women. Merle winked at Lily and she looked at Daryl questioningly. He nodded to Glen and looking at Glen Lily saw he was blushing and smiling happily. She raised her brows in question and Merle snickered. Glen leaned against a column ignoring Merle.

"Found a nice little farm a couple hours up the way," Merle announced gleefully. "Annie, they got horses there ya can ride." Lily shot a look at Daryl and he nodded, smirking at the look of happiness on Lily's face.

"Yeah, it's set off the road a ways. Sits on a hill and the yard slopes down to a lake. The main house is a huge cabin. Family's lived there for generations 'cording to the old man. He's a veterinarian and he has some horses and dogs and cats, chickens and some goats. Coupla cows for milking," Daryl told Lily.

Andrea and Amy smiled at the news. "So a family lives there?" Andrea asked.

Merle nodded and jerked his thumb over at Glen. "Yeah, somebody is already sweet on the oldest daughter," and Glen blushed again but didn't deny it.

Andrea laughed. "So who else is there?"

Merle grinned. "Old man and his wife, two girls-one bout Carl's age and the other bout Chinaman here's age," and he snickered again.

"They're all alone there?" Carol asked anxiously.

Daryl nodded. "Yeah, their farmhands disappeared one day going to town. Haven't seen or heard from 'em since. The old man has a HAM radio and he kept in contact with someplace until bout two weeks ago. Hasn't been able to talk to anyone since."

"Is it safe?" Amy asked nervously.

"Yes, it looks like it could be," Rick answered as he walked up with Lori. "Herschel, the man who owns the farm, said we would be welcome to move our stuff there and we could live in the bigger barn-it's actually been converted to a guest house of some kind and then there's a smaller barn for the cows and horses and such. He just asked that we help out with any work that needs to be done. They've got a large garden, an orchard and there's fish in the lake. He said there's good hunting there too."

Daryl nodded at this. "And there's just one road that leads to the house, and it can be blocked off easily. It goes over a stream, so we can block off the bridge and have someone watch it. The buildings sit up on a hill so ya got a clear view all around ya, and then there's the woods on one side and the lake on the other."

Merle blew out a smoke ring. "Old man said they hadn't seen any walkers up that way, and no one else either. He said they never did get bothered much before all of this because they're so outta the way. Said we could come up now and get settled in if we wanted." And at this he grinned again and puffed out another smoke ring.

Everyone started talking at once excitedly and it was decided they should pack up immediately and go to the farm to get settled in before nightfall.