LoriAnn

"No," Lori told them. She rested her elbows on her knees and put her head in her hands. No no no no no none of this is real. She could feel their eyes on her. Then she felt Maria's hand on her back and another hand on her right forearm that she guessed was Dixie. They had to be playing some kind of trick on her. There's no way she was going to be convinced that any of this was true. Because that would mean admitting that what she had seen in the woods all those months ago was true. All the terrible dreams she had been having. So much of that had actually happened. It was all too much for her, and she felt like her head was going to explode.

"What did you see?," Glenna asked. A few heads turned her way. She thought so much quicker than everyone else that at first the question seemed out of place. But once the words were out of her mouth, they made perfect sense. There was no way Lori was this upset by what Dixie had just told her. If she thought this was all some kind of bad joke, she would have laughed at them, not buried her head in her hands and started rocking back and forth.

"I never saw anything," Lori mumbled into her hands, "I was dreaming, it never happened."

"If it was a dream," Dixie told her, "then tell us what you dreamed." Lori was shaking her head. Dixie took her hands and gently pulled them away from her face. Dixie spoke to her softly and gently. "Just tell us." Lori took a few deep breaths. The muscles in her arms twitched and her body tensed up. She held tight to Dixie's hand with both of hers, drawing strength from the girl. It had been such a long time ago, and Lori had tried her hardest to forget what she saw. When Glenna started explaining the way the man's mask looked, everything came back to her in a rush of terrible images. One more deep breath and she started talking.

Lori had been staying at Hilltop. She had gone on a short trip to Little Lake with Rolland and Judith to trade for a bunch of scrap metal they had. They had taken two large horse carts so they would be able to bring it all back. The people at Little Lake were nice. Just like at Hilltop, lots of men found a reason to try and talk to her once they found out she wasn't married. To get away from the constant attention, she decided to go out hunting for the day. Little Lake was a community of small cabins and houses around a lake. Rolland tried to explain that he thought the place had originally been some kind of old world camp where people sent their children in the summer to fish and canoe and have other kinds of fun.

The woods around the place were different from the woods around Alexandria. And they were hunted much less frequently. So many of the animals were not even afraid of her once they caught her scent. She could have finished her hunting in a few minutes. but since hunting had not been her real reason for getting out of town, she walked by the boar trails and rabbit warrens, heading out deeper into the woods. Lori found an old tree stand that still looked fairly sturdy. She climbed up and found a comfortable spot. Then she pulled out her water canteen and took a sip. A family of deer wandered out in front of her. Instead of taking aim, she watched them for a while. It was a mother, a button buck and a smaller fawn that still had little white spots on its back The fawn ran around the doe, jumping and playing, butting into it's mother and trying to get her to play with it.

The day was warm, but not hot and there was a nice cool breeze coming in from the east. Lori was tired from the ride, and the stressful task of guiding the horses over the rough roads. And from the hours they had spent moving and loading scrap metal the day before. She leaned back against the trunk of the tree and closed her eyes. She drifted off to sleep, and then she had a terrible nightmare. That was the only thing that could explain what happened next.

There was a loud scream. It was a scream of fear and pain. And it pulled Lori out of her light nap with a start, like someone had slapped her. She rubbed at her eyes and looked around to see where the noise had come from. The family of deer were missing. And instead two people were in the small clearing. A woman was on the ground and an oddly dressed man was leaning over her, stabbing her in the chest. Then he stood up and walked around her in a circle, chanting in some strange language Lori didn't understand.

He held the knife out over the woman's body and bright red blood was sliding down the blade, dripping down from the tip of it. The woman's body started to twitch. When her eyes opened, she was one of the masses. The undead. No longer a person. But when the walker woman rose from the ground, she made no move to attack the man. Instead she followed him in a circle around the clearing. Then he stopped and turned toward the walker, still holding his knife. Lori couldn't see what the man's facial expression was, since he was wearing a mask. He used the knife to cut off the remainder of the woman's clothes. Lori had ever seen a walker that fresh before. On the rare occasion that someone got bit by a walker, the limb was removed or they were put down immediately. If they died, they would be stabbed throught the head to make sure they never turned. If she had seen this woman from behind, she might have thought she was still alive and just injured in some way.

The man finished up cutting away at the walker's clothing. Then he started walking around in a circle again with the naked walker trailing behind him. Then he stopped and face the thing. He pointed at the ground and the walker lay down where he was pointing, moving in a disjointed jerky way, like its body and head were not attached. Then the man started taking unbuttoning his pants. Lori jumped up to her feet. forgetting that there was a large hard tree branch directly above her head. She hit her head on it hard enough to make her see stars. Then her limp body dropped onto the tree stand.

When she woke up, the man and the walker woman were gone. The deer were gone. And her head hurt. She saw a small puddle of dark blood in the clearing. But she told herself it must have been from an injured animal. Theres no way that what she had seen could have been real. Lori used the walk back to Little Lake to calm herself. She had never told anyone about what she had seen. Convinced that what she had seen was a dream, she pushed it down and made herself forget. When that pregnant woman had shown up at Hilltop, talking about smart walkers, Lori had never conciously made the connection. But thats when the dreams had started.

"You really think what I saw was real?," Lori asked. There were nods all around. Lori started to cry. Everyone at Little Lake had been killed. And maybe if she had killed that man when she saw him, she could have prevented all of that. Now he was threatening her home. And her family.

"Yes," Dixie told her. Then one by one, each of them told her what they had seen. Glenna asked her to describe the mask she had seen in more detail. There was no doubt that it was the same man she and Sarah had seen. After all, how many crazed men in the same mask that could control walkers could there be running around out there.

"You forgot the best part," Sarah reminded them. Lori wiped her tears and looked at Sarah. How could there be a best part about any of this? Sarah smiled, the bruised and swollen side of her face twisting up and making her look wicked.

"What is the best part?," Lori asked.

"We know where that creep is hiding." At that, Dixie and Sarah locked eyes. Lori could tell they were both thnking the same thing. And she thought they were both crazy.

"The festival starts tomorrow," Maria reminded them. If they all went traipsing off into the woods right now, they were really going to be missed. All their parents would throw a collective fit. Dixie scratched at her head. She would like nothing more than to leave right now and find that man. Then he was going to pay for what he had done. But Maria did have a point.

"Let's think of it this way," Hershel said in his logical way, "the fesitval gives us a few days to plan our attack." Then he squeezed Dixie's hand hard. "And no one better go off trying to hunt him on their own." She made a litte pouty face at him, and then looked at Sarah again.

"I am not fucking kidding with you!," Hershel hollered at Dixie, making the other girls jump, "this is not a joke Dixie, you could have been killed!" Dixie threw her hands up.

"Okay okay," she said, "I won't go out by myself again."

"Or with Sarah," Hershel added. With that she crossed her arms over her breasts.

"Or with Sarah," she repeated reluctantly.

"He is right Dixie," Jenny added. She gave Hershel a look that he took to mean Jenny was going to watch her crazy cousin and make sure she didn't take off again. Dixie wrinkled up her nose at both of them. Lori laughed at her expression. Telling her story to the group had been hard. But now that Lori had gotten it off her chest, she felt like a weight had been lifted. And she was glad that she wasn't going crazy and seeing things. Lori wouldn't know for sure until the next time she slept, but she had a feeling her nightmares had finally come to an end.