"What's the plan for tomorrow?" Daryl asked as Rick walked towards the rear store room, small tent tucked under his arm.
"We'll get those coolers up on the roof, then I wanna take a look around." he said as he pushed open the swinging door. "I'll take Tyreese with me, and you choose someone to take along with you."
"You're not takin' Glenn?" Daryl asked, a bit surprised. "You ain't holdin' a grudge or nothin' are ya?"
"No." Rick assured his second in command. "It's just that with what happened, I just want Glenn, Maggie and Beth to stay here, help things get set up, people settled in."
"If you follow that logic, you shouldn't be goin' out neither." Daryl eyed the other man as he tossed the package to the tent down and started opening it.
"Last time I took time to collect my thoughts, look what happened." Rick made himself busy. "I can't afford to do that again..not now."
"You think our old buddy was behind it?" Daryl knelt next to him, helping him sort the pieces.
"I wanna say yeah.." he sighed as he stared blankly at the instructions.
"But you think he would have let it be known he did it." Daryl nodded. He agreed completely. The Governor had totally lost it, and he had no doubt he would have bragged about what he'd done. He also didn't think he'd simply shoot to kill instead of trying to take some prizes, and what better prize could the mad man find than Carl and Judith, away from their father.
"Exactly." Rick had thought it over numerous times and each time he did it led him to believe there was someone else responsible for that attack. It made him more nervous than ever to think there was someone else out there who meant them harm, but that was the world they know lived in.
"Rick?" Glenn said as he approached, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his jeans.
"I'm gonna go ask Carol if she wants to come out tomorrow." Daryl said, sensing the two men needed time to talk alone.
"Sure." Rick stood up and wiped the dust from his knees. "What is it?" he asked, eying the younger man carefully.
"I'm sorry." Glenn spat the words out as fast as he could. He'd been wanting to talk to Rick about what happened that day, wanted to apologize.
"You don't have nothin' to be sorry for." Rick walked over and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"I wanted to get them all out...Beth and Judith were there, alive...I wanted to get Carl out for you..." Glenn began to cry. "I'm sorry. You trusted me with them, and Carl's..."
"Hey!" Rick pulled Glenn into a hug. "You did right gettin' Beth and Judith out first." he pulled away. "What happened was not your fault!" he held back tears of his own. "I still trust you with my family..with Judith and everyone!" He wanted to make sure Glenn knew that he still had complete faith in him. The last thing he wanted, that any of them needed, was one of his most trusted guys to fall apart due to guilt. "As far as layin' Carl to rest...he would have been away from Lori, which would have been wrong...and it's not like I can visit their graves every year." he let out a sad laugh. "This world has gone to hell."
"You could say that." Glenn nodded, feeling a bit better after having spoken to Rick. The guilt he felt from that day had been weighing heavily on him, and he needed to find a way to move past it.
"Tomorrow Daryl and I are gonna go out, look around the town, see if we find a trace of anyone but us."
"You want me to come with you?" Glenn asked, eager for a way to make amends.
"No, I need you to stay here."
Glenn stared at him, disappointment written all over his face. "Stay here." he said slowly.
"I'm not askin' you to stay here because I don't trust you." Rick knew where the other man's mind had gone. "It's because I do trust you that I need you here, lookin' out for Judith, Beth, Maggie...everyone here."
"It's not because you're afraid I'm gonna get us killed?" Glenn couldn't hide his fears.
"Hell no!" Rick took a deep breath. "If I didn't trust you, you'd be goin' out with me and I'd be leavin' Tyrese or Daryl here to watch things."
Glenn sighed. He knew there was logic to that. "I don't mean to fall apart, it's just that I keep picturing it all happening.."
"I know." Rick stared at the ground, images of what had taken place up to that point flashing before him. "Maggie and Beth are havin' the same problem, no doubt."
"Maggie's worried about Beth." Glenn confided. "She's afraid she might try to hurt herself again.."
Rick stared at him. He hadn't thought of that. After the incident at the barn, Beth had taken a turn for the worse and wore the scar for it. She and Carl had been friends, and she'd not only seen him killed, but was damn near killed herself. "We'll all have to keep an eye on her."
"Maggie's gonna talk to her later." Glenn nodded. "Not sure which would be worse for Beth, to have all of us watching her and waiting for her crack, or having Maggie have that little heart-to-heart with her."
"She seems fine now." he thought back over her behavior so far since Carl's death and couldn't think of any time in which she seemed that fragile. "But, we'll keep an eye on her."
"You ready?" Daryl asked Carol as he carefully set his crossbow down in between the two front seats. He'd wanted to take his bike, but Rick had shot that down. Unknown territory, cargo room and all that.
"Yeah." she nodded as she climbed in and buckled her seat belt. "It'll be nice to get out for a bit."
"Even pokin' around an empty town?" he asked as he fiddled with the wires to get the car started.
"Can't be any spookier than living in an abandoned store." she shuddered.
"Okay, you two take the end of town where we came in." Rick said, suddenly appearing. "We'll hit the other end, work our way back and we can meet in the middle."
"Sounds as good plan as any." Daryl smiled as the car fired up.
"Glenn will be seeing which car we can take back to the cabin?" Carol asked, still hating the fact that the group had split.
"Yeah." Rick nodded, looking over and seeing Glenn popping hoods. "He's on it now." he smiled. "Beth is getting supplies together for them, tomorrow we'll set out to make sure they get them."
"Ready?" Tyrese asked, adjusting the strap of the rifle he carried.
"Let's roll." Rick said, one last glance back towards the front of the store. He felt uneasy leaving them all, but they had to see what all was roaming around in what was left of this town. He nodded quickly to Beth as she waved before jumping in behind the wheel of a truck they'd hot wired.
"See ya." Daryl waved quickly before pulling out, making a beeline for the repair shop he'd first spotted with Beth. "I know where we're headed first."
"Where?" Carol asked, rolling her window down to enjoy the crisp breeze for a moment before rolling it back up.
"Remember seein' a trashed shop on your way in?" he asked as he turned the corner.
"Vaguely." she nodded.
"Thought it was kinda weird it seems to be the only place trashed."
"So we'll check it out and see if we can find out why." Carol smiled and nodded.
"Bingo." he made his way along and spotted the shop and pulled in. "Get your gun ready." he instructed as they got out and slowly made their way in through the front door.
"I haven't even seen any walkers since we've been here." Carol commented as she followed closely behind.
"Just adds to the creepiness." Daryl made sure the coast was clear before waving her in and began to scan the shelves. "This place wasn't looted either."
"So why bust out all the windows and everything?" Carol looked around and saw an assortment of car supplies littering the floor, shelves turned over.
"Must not have liked whoever was here." Daryl nodded towards a sign that hung above the sales counter. "B&H. One or both seemed to have pissed someone off."
"With everything that's going on I can't imagine trashing a place out of spite alone." she continued to wander around, heading around behind the desk.
"I'm gonna take these parts out to the car." Daryl said, packing everything into a discarded box.
"Okay." Carol said as she spied a makeshift bed behind the counter. Grungy blankets folded to make up a mattress of sorts, some shirts used as a pillow. She noticed there were two shirt piles...two pillows. Not noticing anything of real use, she turned to head into the store room when she spotted a stack of notebooks out of the corner of her eye. Picking them up, she set them on the counter and looked at the covers, each one numbered. One through eleven. "Keeping a diary?" she whispered as she opened up to the last page of book eleven and started reading.
I'm getting sick of Preston's bible thumpers coming here. They've gotten worse, and today when I called them a cult, the look in the boy's eyes made my blood run cold.
I would never join them. I've never been a god-fearing man, and if there is a god and he sent Preston to be his representative on Earth, then I've been right in not following him. The stuff Preston does is just wrong. Sick and wrong. And the fact he does it all in the name of religion...and knowing more and more people seem to following him..After what they've done...what they took from me...
"Whatcha got there?" Daryl asked as he came back in, seeing her reading something.
"The man..I assume it was a man with this writing...he was keeping an account of what was going on I think." she flipped through the pages.
"And?" he asked.
"I think at one point there may have been a cult here." she looked up and shook her head. "He mentions someone named Preston..."
Daryl held his hand up to signal her to stop speaking. They both listened intently and Carol was soon able to understand why the sudden need for quiet. The unmistakable sound of a walker groaning could be heard from behind the store.
"Have your gun ready." Daryl said as he readied his crossbow, sneaking carefully towards the sound. The store room was empty, at least of any threat. He made a mental note to clear the room out as soon as they'd dealt with whatever was making the noise. "Shhh." he said as they reached the rear entrance and he flung the door open.
"Oh, no." Carol sobbed when she saw where the noise was coming from.
A man in dark blue coveralls was nailed to a rough crucifix, snarling at them, a sign that read 'blasphemer' hanging around his neck.
"I think we just found the H in the B&H." Daryl sighed, nodding to the embroidered name tag that read 'Henry'. "Poor son of a bitch."
"They did this to him?" Carol looked away as Daryl let one arrow quickly go, putting Henry out of his misery.
"Looks like it." he frowned at the sight before them. The clothes hung on an emaciated frame, obvious that the man had been up there sometime without food or water. "So, not only do we have to worry about that freak from Woodbury, who ever the hell attacked Glenn and them, but now some psycho religious cult." he retrieved his arrow and sighed. "This just gets better and better."