AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"Carl's missing!" Lori yelled out, coming down the stairs almost two at a time.
Carol was in the living room with everyone else, moving between the rooms to watch the chaos outside. They had the doors locked and barricaded, and Carol was waiting with a gun in her hand that she barely knew how to use.
Outside there was nothing but absolute confusion. Vehicles roared everywhere. Everyone was fighting the herd of Walkers that was headed straight for the farm—everyone that wasn't barricaded in the house. Their hope was that they could stop the herd before it had a chance to plow through everything that was providing them a home for the time being. They hoped they could save something.
Carol almost felt useless in the house. She was there with Sophia, Hershel, his daughter Beth, Patricia—the wife of the man who had died attempting to get medical supplies for Carl's injury, Lori, and Carl. It was, theoretically, Carol's job to help keep those safe that couldn't keep themselves safe, but really she suspected that she was simply being lumped into the "can't keep themselves" safe category. And, really, it was probably true. After all, the gun in her hand felt heavy and foreign. She'd only fired a gun a few times for practice and she wasn't terrible at hitting her target, but she wouldn't have labelled herself a markswoman by any stretch of the imagination.
Everyone else was outside fighting, but Carol wasn't out there. She wasn't keeping the farm safe. She wasn't defending their temporary "home" for the good of her group. If anything, she was a last line of defense for the children. If the Walkers made it to the house, they would likely take all of them. Carol's job was simple—she'd fight to the death to be sure that her daughter, and anyone else who happened to be alive at that point, didn't die as long as there was breath left in her body.
Carol didn't know how long she could keep her daughter alive, but she knew that she was prepared to sacrifice her own life to try to save Sophia.
And she'd given Sophia clear instructions—if she was gone, Sophia was to run. She was to run as long and as fast as she could. She was to run as far away from the creatures as she could. She wasn't to delay just because Carol was gone. She had to save herself, and she'd already proven that she could.
Carol assumed, honestly, that's why Lori was there too. They were the last line of defense for their children—except, now, one of their children was missing.
"What do you mean he's missing?" Carol asked.
"He's not in the house!" Lori yelled.
Carol couldn't imagine that the boy could have gotten out the house. They were close to the door and they'd only just slid one of the heavy pieces of furniture in front of it to try to keep the Walkers from pushing the door in if they should reach it. In fact, the only way that Carl could not be in the house was if he hadn't been in the house to begin with, and Carol couldn't imagine that Lori was only now discovering that her son was unaccounted for when there was a veritable war raging outside complete with gunfire and the living dead.
"The barn's on fire!" Beth yelled, calling from the other room where she was watching from the windows. "Daddy! Daddy! The barn's on fire!"
"Who's still out there?" Carol called. "Can you see anyone?"
"They're still fighting," Beth called back. "But I can't see anyone. Not anybody I can make out. Daddy—the barn's really burning."
"The fire'll spread," Hershel said. "It's been dry. It's just a matter of time before it spreads to the house. It'll burn us all alive if we're in here."
"Carl is missing!" Lori yelled, grabbing at Carol's arm like Carol hadn't heard her before.
"Did you check upstairs?" Carol asked. She ignored the expression she got from Lori. She could give Lori a plethora of expressions herself.
"Of course," Lori said. "He's not upstairs. He's not in the house."
"Then he left before the fight broke out," Carol said. "He left before we spotted the herd."
"My son is missing!" Lori yelled, her voice trembling.
Carol's stomach twisted. She understood that feeling. She understood the desperate sensation that was behind it. She understood the sensation that all major organs were shutting down at once because such an idea was too much to cope with.
And she understood, far better than Lori, what it was to feel like people were ignoring you.
"Let's look again," Carol said. "Come on—we'll look again. Maybe he got scared and he just...hid or something."
"Carl doesn't hide," Lori said. "What if he went out with Rick? What if he's out there? Carol? What if my baby is out there?"
Carol swallowed. She didn't know how to offer Lori any words of comfort. If Carl was out there, he was out there. And right now, he was in the thick of it. Of course, if it hadn't been for Daryl, her daughter most-assuredly would've been out there and right in the wake of the herd as it moved through.
"We'll look again," Carol offered quietly.
"No time," Hershel said, coming through from the other room. "The fire's starting to spread. The herd's still moving this way. We'll die in the house if we don't get out."
"We can make a run for the vehicles," Patricia said. "Drive off the farm."
She moved to the piece of furniture that was blocking the door and started to push it. Outside, the sounds of engines roaring and gunfire was still coming through. They were still fighting. It wasn't all lost yet. Between them, in the house, they had four guns that Carol knew of, though Patricia was determined that she wasn't touching the small pistol that had been given to her for an emergency.
While the others shoved the furniture out of the way, and Lori walked around in a panic over the fact that Carl was outside the house, Carol found the gun that Patricia had refused. It was lightweight and small. It was fully loaded like the one she was already carrying and it would practically fit in Carol's hand. It fit very well in the pocket of the pants that she was wearing. She kept the other gun she'd been given in her hand and she pulled Sophia close to her.
If they were going out there, it was possibly going to be every man—or woman—for themselves. Carol understood that, and she wasn't letting Sophia out of her reach.
Hershel disappeared, but he returned by the time they were moving the furniture out of the way. He surprised Carol because though he'd argued against the guns, even as they were being handed out, he came with a shotgun in his hand and a bag of what Carol could only assume was ammunition. For a man who had been against weapons, he certainly seemed prepared.
"Go for the cars," Hershel said. "Get Bethie out of here. I'm not going."
"The herd's headed this way," Carol said. "You've gotta go. You'll be killed if you stay."
"I'm not leaving my farm," Hershel said. "This is my farm and I'll die here. I'll cover you all so you can make it to the vehicles."
"There's nothing left," Carol said. "There won't be. The fire is spreading already. You said yourself it'll take the house."
"I built the house once," Hershel said. "I can do it again. Don't argue with me. Get your daughter and get out of here."
Carol didn't argue. She didn't have time and her concern for Hershel was not nearly as great as her concern for Sophia. She pushed Sophia out the door and stepped out after her. She pushed Sophia down the porch steps, always keeping her hand on the girl's shoulder.
Outside the flames lit up the night well enough that it was pretty easy to see most of what was happening in the direction of the barn. The Walkers headed toward them were coming, still, like a wall. Doing everything in their power to clear them, vehicles were circling the creatures. There was a loud crash that made Carol jump as a part of the barn succumbed to the flames and fell.
"Let's go!" Patricia called out. "The vehicles are this way. We'll take Otis' truck!"
Carol almost felt frozen by fear, but she forced herself to start to move in the direction that Patricia indicated. In her ears, she could hear the pounding of her heart and her labored breath even over everything that was taking place. She heard Hershel's shotgun when he fired into the oncoming Walkers. Now that her eyes were adjusting to the contrasts in light and dark, Carol realized that they were all around them.
She could hear them growling, even when she couldn't see them.
When Carol heard a scream, she grabbed Sophia and pulled the girl against her. Only a few feet away from her, Patricia was bitten. Several Walkers were pulling on her, tearing into her flesh while Beth clung to the woman and screamed.
Behind her, Hershel was firing at the Walkers closest to him and Lori was screaming pathetically for her son who seemed to be lost somewhere in the chaos.
Carol was surrounded. There was no clear path. There was nowhere to go. She could probably run for it, but she wasn't sure that Sophia could keep up. Her daughter clung to her and waited for her to have some kind of answer.
Carol's only answer was to fire the gun she held in her hand and to drop a Walker that neared her.
Almost out of nowhere, a truck pulled up near them. Several gunshots blasted out of the window of the truck and a few Walkers closest to them dropped down.
"Get in!" T-Dog yelled. "Get in! It's over. We can't fight 'em all!"
Carol stepped forward and pushed Beth, who was practically at the state of being catatonic and very much at risk of becoming Walker bit herself, toward the truck. With her help, Beth moved and finally headed for the vehicle. Carol pushed Sophia toward the truck as well and walked along with her daughter, guiding her to the vehicle.
"Get in!" T-Dog repeated once Carol had pushed Sophia and Beth both into the cab of the truck.
Behind her, Hershel was still shooting. And somewhere beyond that, Lori was screaming her son's name in a panic laden voice.
"I've got to help," Carol said. "I've got to help her find Carl. We can't leave him. We can't just leave her, either."
"There's no helping anybody," T-Dog said. "It's over, Carol. It's all over. We gotta go and we gotta go now. Everybody's leaving. Everybody that's alive. We gotta get out of here or we're not getting off the farm. We can still make it through right now, but that might not last for long."
"I'm coming," Carol said. "Otis' truck. We'll take it. But—I've got to help Lori find Carl. Get Hershel."
"There's no time for that," T-Dog insisted.
"There's no time to argue with me!" Carol yelled back at him. "Take Sophia and Beth. Get them somewhere safe. I'm trusting you."
"I'm trying to save your life!" T-Dog yelled back in frustration. He leaned out of the window and fired his gun at a Walker that was coming toward them. He hit the Walker and dropped it to the ground with a loud thud. "The bullets won't hold out much longer."
"I've got enough," Carol said. "And I'm trusting you with something more important than my life. Go—get them out of here!"
Sophia screamed at Carol when Beth pulled the truck door shut and T-Dog dropped the truck into drive.
"I love you, sweetheart! Go with T! I'm coming!" Carol yelled at her. She couldn't say anything else. She ran in the direction of Lori who had gone running off around the house screaming her son's name and her husband's name, using the bullets that she had in the heavy gun she was carrying to clear a path for herself.
The small pistol, she hoped, would have enough ammunition to get them to the truck when she finally got her hands on Lori. Patricia, after all, wasn't going to be needing it. Instead, for the time being, she was distracting the Walkers that stumbled in that direction because most of them stopped to see if there was anything left of her to pick off for a meal.
There wasn't much left—not of Patricia, and not of the farm.
They were running out of time, but Carol had enough bullets, she was sure, to make it back to the truck.