Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters/plotlines associated with it.
Lori kept peeking out of the window between the curtains with a worried look on her face. I sat on one of the couches, my elbows resting on my thighs. There was nothing we could do about the matter right now. Benny lingered at the doorway, the bag of weapons open at his feet and a pistol poised in his hands. Hershel would have usually said no to such things, but I think all of us felt a bit more comfortable knowing that we could easily be armed to protect ourselves.
My mind kept flickering back to the look on Shane's face when he had come running from the woods. It had been hard to describe in my head, but I knew what it was. Shane was no stranger to losing his temper, but it seemed like this one had completely tipped him over the edge. I wondered if Lori was more worried for him or for Rick.
"You shouldn't stress yourself out," Carol rested a hand on Lori's shoulder. "It's not good for you… or for…"
She nodded down at Lori's stomach as if she didn't want to say anything. Lori nodded, her hand falling to caress her ever so slightly swollen stomach. I let out a huff. It was hard to sit around and wait without knowing what was happening. We all sat in the lounge, pacing or tapping our feet and fingers in anticipation.
I pushed myself to my feet, moving over towards my brother stationed at the door. He was chewing his lip nervously.
"I think I should go and find them," He mumbled to me as I got closer.
"No, you shouldn't," I shook my head. "If anything happens back here, we won't be able to handle ourselves on our own. You're needed here more."
"Do you think that they got him?"
"That… or someone else got them."
Benny raised his eyebrows and I nodded at his suspicious look. The door opened and Daryl and Glenn came back in. Everyone jumped to their feet, moving forward to hear what they had to say. They both looked at us all slightly awkwardly, their weapons resting in their grimy hands still.
"Rick and Shane ain't back?" Daryl narrowed his eyes.
"No," Lori shook her head. "We heard a shot."
"Maybe they found Randall. They probably had to shoot him down," I offered, trying to ease Lori's mind.
"We found him," Daryl looked around.
"Is he back in the shed?"
"He's a Walker."
"Did you find the Walker that bit him?"
"No, the weird thing is he wasn't bit. His neck was broke."
There was a silence around the group. How was it possible to become a Walker without being bit or scratched? The last thing we needed was something else to endanger our group. We hadn't even got to spend our first night in Hershel's home.
I ran a hand through my already dishevelled hair, meeting Daryl's eye. He shrugged at me and I smiled sadly. This world was proving to be more difficult as the days went on. It was becoming almost unbearable.
"The thing is, Shane and Randall's tracks were right on top of each other," Daryl explained what he had seen in the forest. "And Shane ain't no tracker, so he didn't come up behind him. They were together."
"Would you please get back out there, find Rick and Shane and find out what on earth is going on?" Lori pleaded him.
"You got it."
"Thank you."
Daryl walked out the front door. Without saying anything to anyone, I silently departed after him. As he was loading up his crossbow on the porch, I walked up behind him and waited for him to finish. He glanced up at me as he worked.
"I don't think Walkers are the things holding Rick off," I told him bluntly.
"Yeah, I hear ya," Daryl said. "I saw that look on Shane's face too. I ain't no stranger to that one."
"Just… Be careful, okay?"
His eyes bored into mine for a few moments. Solemnly, he nodded. We looked out over into the fields as we stood on the porch. At the sound of a building noise, the others came out onto the porch and looked across the grounds too. Benny lifted the rifle he was holding, peering through the scope.
However, we didn't need a scope to tell what it was. A herd of Walkers were making their way from the woods and through the fields towards the farmhouse. I gaped at the sight of the immense crowd of staggering corpses.
"Patricia, kill the lights," Hershel called out.
"Maybe they're just passing, like the herd on the highway. Should we just go inside?" Carol suggested.
"Not unless there's a tunnel downstairs I don't know about. A herd that size would rip the house down."
Patricia nodded and ran back inside the house. Guns were handed out among us. I rushed inside and grabbed my backpack, swinging it onto my back and backing out of the house again. Lori ran back outside, a panicked expression on her face.
"Carl's gone," She gasped out.
"What?" Carol looked at her quickly.
"He… he was upstairs. I can't find him anymore."
"Maybe he's hiding."
"He's supposed to be upstairs. I'm not leaving without my boy."
"We're gonna look again. We're gonna find him."
I passed a gun to Carol as she moved past me and into the house with Lori. She nodded at me briefly before she disappeared. The dense night suffocating us made the situation seem even scarier.
Suggestions were being thrown about. It was decided that we would kill as many as we could and use the cars to lead the rest of them off the farm. Hershel lingered behind outside the house with his gun. I rushed down towards the pickup truck along with Andrea and T-Dogg. They climbed into the cab and I hitched myself up into the bed of the truck, propping myself up against the window and checking that my rifle and pistol were all loaded. Benny was getting into the RV with Jimmy to head over to the barn, which was flickering with orange flames. I very briefly noticed Daryl climbing onto his motorcycle, but I didn't have enough time to acknowledge him.
T-Dogg revved the engine of the car and pulled forward. Glenn and Maggie had taken the other car. I knew that it was dangerous sitting in the bed, but we all agreed that I needed to be somewhere where I could aim and shoot freely without having to drive too slowly, which would end up with us all getting taken down by Walkers.
"Yo!" T-Dogg pointed over to the farm; I was grateful I could still hear them. "Must've been Rick or Shane who started that fire. Maybe they're trying to get out back!"
"Why don't you circle round? Go!"
The car swerved, gripping into the dry soil as it spun on its wheels. Walkers were coming from all directions. I leant the rifle on my propped up knee, taking aim and shooting down a couple of Walkers who had been gaining on the vehicle. The others were in shooting range, but I didn't want to take down many yet when we could end up in a stickier situation later on, which would be likely.
"Where the hell are they going?" Andrea yelled as she watched Glenn and Maggie's vehicle turn around up ahead.
"Should I follow them?" T-Dogg asked.
"I'd say yes… Swing it around. Swing it around here. Whoa, whoa!"
I jolted in the bed of the truck. Up ahead, I could see Hershel leaving his post. Screams came from their direction, and I feared the worst, but I had no time to think on the situation.
"Annie?" T-Dogg yelled out to me. "How are you holding up?"
"Fine…" I called back. "I'm fine!"
Glenn had hitched himself up through the passenger window, positioning his rifle on the roof of the car and shooting down Walkers that way. Andrea followed suit. I moved forward to the tailgate of the truck to get a better shooting distance. I took down about four more Walkers before seeing Glenn and Maggie's car pulling away in the other direction, exiting the farm.
"They're leaving… they're leaving!" I yelled out to the others.
We ignored their departure and continued shooting. T-Dogg pulled the car back round, heading over where we could see Carol running from Walkers. Andrea jumped out of the car, rushing forward to help her. T-Dogg slammed forward, and I could feel myself slipping in the truck.
"Hang on, T!" I yelled. "What about Andrea?"
"The others are up there," He called back. "We need to just keep going."
As the car lingered, Walkers were gaining on us. I cursed, shooting more fervently as they reached the truck. One of the corpses reached out and latched its fingers round my wrist. I lifted the gun in my hands, smashing it on the head with the butt of the rifle. It took a few hits to break through the skull. The brown, gooey blood spilled out onto me and the stench was clear. I groaned, but the Walker finally released its grip from me and fell away, dead on the floor.
"We're going!"
I allowed T-Dogg to pull away, hoping that the others had made it out of the farm. As we pulled out of the farm and onto the dirt road, I watched the barn burn down.
In the end, we decided on heading out to the highway. And it was the best bet we had. I had moved up to the front of the cab, and was sitting beside T-Dogg as he drove groggily down the packed up road. A smile lit my face when I saw a majority of the others had made it back here. My eyes quickly scanned the area for my brother, and I sighed in relief when I spotted him leant up against the hood of one of the cars. I also found myself grinning when I saw Daryl.
T-Dogg and I clambered out of the car. My brother looked up and spotted me, rushing forward to embrace me in a quick hug. He looked pretty unscathed. I, on the other hand, was covered in rotten Walker blood. My clothes were sticking to me in the sweltering heat and I felt disgusting.
"God, I thought you hadn't made it for a second," Benny said in a shaky voice.
"We tried to stay back as long as we could," I replied. "We tried to take down more… But it was overrun, we had to leave. How did you make it out?"
"I… Jimmy died in the process. We were in the RV… We went to the barn and we helped get Rick and Carl out. But, Walkers got to the RV. I managed to get out through the window but Jimmy got stuck behind. I felt terrible."
"I'm sorry you had to see that… but, don't. It's not your fault."
He nodded to me and we both moved to stand with the rest of the gathered group, all greeting each other in pure bliss and happiness. I smiled when Daryl caught my eye and he nodded at me.
"Where'd you find everyone?" Rick asked Daryl, who had only just pulled up with Carol on his motorcycle behind T-Dogg and I.
"Well, those guys' tail lights zigzagging all over the road…" Daryl glanced at Glenn with a small smile. "Figured he had to be Asian, driving like that."
"Good one."
"Where's the rest of us?" Rick glanced around at us all.
There was me, Benny, him, Hershel, Carl, Glenn, Maggie, Daryl, Carol, Lori, Beth and T-Dogg. It seemed that we were the only ones who had got back here… or the only ones who were alive. I had expected to see Andrea with Carol.
"Shane? Andrea?" Rick asked.
"She saved me, then I lost her," Carol told him meekly. "We saw her go down."
I grimaced, glancing down. Maybe it had been my fault that I hadn't jumped out and pursued her. She had been all on her own out there. No wonder she hadn't been able to make it through.
"Patricia?"
"They got her, too," Beth was quiet. "Took her right in front of me. I was… I wad holdin' onto her, daddy. She just… what about Jimmy? Did you see Jimmy?"
"He was in the RV with me," Benny said grimly. "I'm sorry."
"It got overrun," Rick supplied. "You definitely saw Andrea?"
"There were Walkers everywhere."
"Did you see her?"
"I'm gonna go back," Daryl sighed, getting ready to load up his bike.
Although I didn't want Daryl to go back and risk his life all over again, I agreed with him. There was a chance that she could still be out there. It would only be right to go back there and save her. There would be nothing worse than leaving her behind for dead. That would be on my conscience for the rest of my life.
"No," Rick said firmly.
"We can't just leave her," Daryl argued. "We don't even know if she's there."
"She isn't there. She isn't. She's somewhere else or she's dead. There's no way to find her."
"So we're not even gonna look for her?"
"We gotta keep moving. There have been Walkers crawling all over here."
"I say head east. Stay off the main roads. The bigger the road, the more Walkers, more assholes like this one. I got him."
Daryl lifted his crossbow and took down the stray Walker that was stumbling over the wreck on the highway towards us. It felt weird standing in the place that we had once inhabited. There were only bad memories that came with this place, but it still made me think back to simpler times. Times when we had actually had a fighting chance.
We all separated off into cars again. Benny went over to the pickup truck and as I was about to follow after him and T-Dogg, Daryl reached out and caught my arm. I turned to look at him curiously.
"You okay?" He checked with me.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I sighed. "Real peachy."
He looked me in the eye, trying to detect any traces of a lie. If he did, he just ignored it. With one last nod, he walked away and hitched his leg over his motorcycle. Benny called out to me and I walked back over to him, sliding into the cab of the truck first, with him shifting in after me.
We drove down the roads in silence, all of us staring ahead at the empty passages. We were driving for what seemed like forever before the car up ahead flashed us. Our vehicle slowed and we all clambered out of the cars to regroup once more.
"What's wrong?" Benny called out as we walked up to the car ahead.
"We've been riding red for the past hour," Rick explained.
There was a noise of agreement. All of us had been hitting the pedal pretty hard today, and most of us didn't have enough fuel to carry us more than ten minutes down the road.
"We can't stay here," Maggie said.
"We can't all fit in one car," Rick contradicted. "We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning."
"Spend the night here? I'm freezing."
"We'll build a fire, yeah? You go out looking for firewood, stay close."
The idea to set up camp here in the cold wasn't appealing at all, but it was the only option we had at this moment in time. Everyone was in a state of panic. We didn't have enough fuel and upon checking, it seemed like we didn't have enough ammo to last us much longer either. I collapsed on the floor, leaning up against the tire of the pickup truck and listening to the others as they fretted over our situation.
"Everyone stop panicking and listen to Rick," Hershel spoke over the top of everyone and we all instantly settled at the sound of his soothing voice.
"All right, we'll set up a perimeter," Rick said. "In the morning, we'll find gas and some supplies. We'll keep pushing on."
"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and scrounge up some gas," Maggie suggested on her and Glenn's behalf.
"No, we stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car."
"Rick, we're stranded now."
"I know it looks bad, we've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other. I wasn't sure… I really wasn't… but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place."
"Rick, look around. Okay? There's Walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something."
"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but that we fortify, hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other. I know it's out there. We just have to find it."
"Even if we do find a place and we think it's safe, we can never be sure. For how long? Look what happened with the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that was safe."
"We won't make that mistake again. We'll make camp tonight over here, get on the road at the break of day."
I glanced over at the ditches at the side of the road. What was probably once a wall of some sort was now a heap of crumbling stone. Half of the wall still remained in its structure. Even though everyone was arguing, I knew Rick was right. This would be enough. For one night, at least.
"What if Walkers come through, or another group like Randall's?"
"You know I found Randall, right?" Daryl spoke up, gaining all our attention. "He had turned, but he wasn't bit. How's that possible? Rick, what the hell happened?"
"Shane killed Randall…" Rick answered; we all fell into silence. "Just like he always wanted to. And then the herd got hit. We're all infected."
"What?"
"At the C.D.C, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it."
"And you never said anything?"
"Would it have made a difference?"
"You knew this whole time?"
The arguments picked up again. I sat in surprise, mulling over the fact that eventually… eventually, I would turn into one of these things. Even if I made it to the rip old age of eighty seven, I'd still turn into one of these things when I passed away. There had always been a slight worry that I could possibly die of a different reason other than a bite. But now there was an even bigger worry that I might come back and kill someone whom I dearly loved.
