Day 111

Who needs men?

Who needs a group full of men and their testosterone and puffed chests and attempts to prove who's got the bigger dick? Who needs them? Who needs them fighting to see who's in charge, when a small group of just women like us could help each other, care for each other, fight together, save the other's lives over and over again, and support, hold, appreciate, love?

Who needs men?

The three of us were like a well-oiled machine. Andrea had become a good fighter, feeling less and less fear in face of the dangers. In the month it'd been just the three of us, Andrea had adopted two machetes we'd found left behind in a looted camping store, and she fought beautifully with them in hands.

Michonne and her katana were inseparable and she looked like a goddess fighting with it. She needed nothing else, she could slice off half the heads of four walkers at once with just one swing and she wouldn't even break a sweat.

I had retired my heavy firewood axe and adopted a much lighter, practical bush axe, and also kept knives on my waistband. I got good with it, really good. It had become easy for me to strike down at their heads and pull the blade off their skulls before quickly moving to the next one.

We were a team. We walked, we looted, found temporary places, found cars and abandoned them when they were no good anymore. And those two women became my family, my protectors. They thought I didn't notice, but they always made sure I ate a bit more than they did, that I rested more, took shorter lookouts. They were my sisters, my son's aunts.

Still, I had lost weight. My stomach seemed to have grown abnormally for this stage of pregnancy. I was four months along or so, I calculated about eighteen or nineteen weeks, but as I was so thin it was very perceptible now. The jeans I had on when that all happened at the farm, and the other pair of jeans I had found a bit after we formed out three-way group did not fit anymore. I had to find new ones, larger, and made do with a belt. They were comfortable, though.

The girls worried. Michonne tried to be discrete when asking about the baby's movements, but I knew she was worried when I told her I hadn't felt anything other than the little butterfly wings inside my belly. I worried too… But he was growing, wasn't he? If my stomach was getting bigger even with all the lack of food, nutrition, rest and all the things I should be having, he was still growing. I felt weak sometimes, had to sleep more, and Andrea and Michonne were always there to keep watch and let me rest.

So who needed men?

Well me. I did. I needed my man. I couldn't believe it had been over a month since that night and we hadn't found a trace of them. Not a sign that they had been around the places we went though. Every single walker we found on our way, walking or gone, I would check to see if there wasn't an arrow stuck to it. I never found any. We sometimes did see track marks but it was impossible to know if it was theirs, they could be anyone's. There was nothing that could make me believe Daryl was around, that the others were around.

I thought a lot of them, of what they were doing. If they'd found a safe place, if they'd found trouble on their way. How was Lori now? She was over a month behind me, so she was probably already showing as well. Were she and Rick fine? How was Carl? Had he perfected his shooting, or learned how to use any other weapon? How was Carol surviving the loss of Sophia? Was Carol keeping her loyalty to Daryl like she'd told us that day in the RV? Had she learned how to fight? Had the Greenes escaped the farm with them? Were they all a big group now? And if so, did that mean Glenn and Maggie were still together? Had the Greenes, Jimmy and Patricia learned how to fight, to defend themselves?

How about Daryl? Had he moved on? Was he still mourning me? Did it cross his mind at any moment that I might still be alive? That Rick was mistaken or that he had not seen it right when he looked at me across the meadow? Probably not. Certainly not. Had he retreated within himself or had he created a good friendship with the others?

There was one thing I was sure, though. Daryl would be making sure the group went on with my plans. That they were looking for and would find a safe place. With walls. I was sure he'd tell the group "It's what Sam would've wanted." I could hear him say it in my mind. So they'd find a place, Daryl would make sure, or maybe they already had. They'd be fine.

And I would find them. Someday…

We'd been off the main roads for a long while now. Weeks probably, trying to find a place to stay. Occasionally we found small districts or neighborhoods, but in there we always found nothing that felt right. We'd thought we'd found somewhere interesting once: a L shaped motel with a parking lot right in front of it that we could maybe close around somehow. We spent three nights there until we decided the only open area of a new place to live could not be a cemented parking lot. So we moved on.

There was a tall brick, roughcast wall partially hidden by the overgrowth by a long abandoned dirt road side. I gestured Michonne and Andrea to stop and they did without a question, going silent, attentive and ready. We stood there trying to listen to something, any sign that there was something on the other side of the wall. There was complete silence. I gestured to them again and we restarted our walk. This side of the wall elongated for about fifty yards, and we reached its corner. Using it to observe the other side, we checked for anyone's presence and carefully entered the empty lot, bushes and weed nearly taller than Andrea who was the tallest among us, as we kept following the wall. Another fifty yards and we reached the next corner. We stopped there to survey the other dirt road that was there, one we hadn't found before. Once again we just stood there, hidden by the overgrowth, trying to listen to anything. I nodded at them when I realized there was nothing to be heard. So we left the bushes and walked on the road. On that side of whatever this place was, there was a closed gate as tall as the walls, made of solid, rough wood. Nothing was visible inside.

We circled it all once again, to make sure whatever was inside was really completely closed up on all sides. It was and there were no flaws on the wall, no wholes, nothing fallen. It was sturdy and solid. Now we stood again in front of the wooden gate.

"What if there's people inside?" Andrea questioned in a whisper

"Doesn't look like. Seems abandoned," Michonne told us.

"We'll have to take the risk. But we gotta know what's inside first, it ain't safe to just go in," I told them even as I looked around trying to see a way to look over the walls.

"How would be just go in, anyway?" Andrea asked. "It's too tall."

"That tree over there," I pointed to one by our right. It was taller than the walls. I'll climb it and look over the wall."

"Let me, Sam," Michonne put a hand on my forearm to stop me when I started walking over there.

"It's fine, Mich."

"Please?"

I did love that they cared about me but sometimes it got to my nerves. I could still do stuff, you know? It was like Daryl when he didn't want me to go to Atlanta, and he didn't even know I was pregnant. But now Michonne was already walking away, sheathing her katana as she went. Andrea and I followed and stood under the tree, our weapons out as we took guard and Michonne climbed the tree. It was not an easy one but Michonne was capable and fit enough to do it. Once she was high enough, she settled on a branch and gestured something to Andrea. She understood immediately and took off her backpack, looking inside to find the binoculars we had found on our way. She the tossed it up to Michonne, who grabbed it midair.

We were all quiet for long minutes. Up there, Michonne observed carefully and patiently until she finally started climbing down to report.

"No movements inside. It's overgrown but not as much as outside. There's a small construction on that corner by the gate, seems to be just one room, and there's a house towards the back of the lot, it's kinda big and seems to be a recent construction. Behind it there are trees but nothing more visible. My bet is that it's empty, but walkers can still be hiding in the brushes."

"So what you think?" I asked them. "Should we go in?"

They agreed and all we needed not was a way of opening the gate or climbing a 10 feet tall wall. Simple. It was firmly locked from the inside, no chains visible from the outside, so we ended up deciding we'd have to cut open a hole on the wood. Simple. From the tools we had in hand, only my bush axe was fit for it, so we got to work. After the first few strikes Michonne gave it, we head a growl from the inside, a walker in there had heard it. We had to take turns, the wood was really sturdy and it felt like we were at it for hours. I had killed the walker though the gap once I was finally able to cut through the wood and we could see a little of the inside. Another walker came and got the same treatment.

Once the hole was just wide enough for us to pass through it, yet real tightly, we stopped. We didn't want a huge hole on the gate if we stayed there, and we knew we'd have to close this one somehow. If we got in, anyone could. Michonne went in first, stepping over the walkers' corpses and surveying the inside for a moment until she called it safe. I went in next and it was much harder to go through the gap sideways with my belly. From the inside, Michonne had to grab the wood and pull it in to try and make the hole a bit wider and I got a scratch on the skin of my stomach even under the shirt, but I got in. Andrea came though much easier.

As we stood inside with our backs to the gate, on our left I saw the small construction Michonne had mentioned. It has a simple door that was left open and, peaking inside, we saw it may have been a small office, left there from when the construction was being done. There was a desk and chair and lockers and papers everywhere.

Ahead of us there was a concrete path that led to the house, a driveway. The grassy area by the right, in front of the house was overgrown over half my height, but it allowed a good view of the house. Michonne had said it was kinda big… But it was really big. I wondered why had anyone built such a good house here in the middle of nowhere, and why was it this closed up with walls and a strong gate?

"It guess it was supposed to a drug dealer's refugee or something," I told them as I started slowly down the path and then, to my companions' jump scare, I brought two fingers to my lips and whistled sharply and loudly.

"What the fuck, Sam?" It was Michonne. Since high school I found it funny when she cursed because she rarely did.

"If there are more walkers we'll know," I explained and, sure enough, more than one growl sound came from somewhere near the house. "See?"

It was one for each, dealt with easily, and then we started walking around, always together, starting by following the driveway to the side of the house and rounding it. Behind the house there was a full orchard. The fruit trees, which we didn't stop now to check of what fruit they were, were blooming and I felt a good thing seeing this. It seemed more and more to be the kind of place I had in mind since the beginning. There was a wide porch on the house there and it even had outdoor furniture still wrapped in plastic, brand new. I caught Andrea smiling at that. On the other side of the house, there was a wooden, cute construction: a chicken coop.

"So did the drug dealer liked to raise chickens?" Andrea asked as we approached it. The little door was open and no chickens were in sight. A shame.

The front of the house also had a porch, though smaller than the back one. We climbed the few steps that led there and looked around at the grassy area and tried to see into the grass windows, but they were too dusty. All we knew is that it was all completely quiet.

As it turned out, the construction of that property wasn't even done. The attic didn't even have windows yet and some rooms were not yet painted, but other than that it was all brand new, there were already a few pieces of furniture, the bedrooms were done the kitchen had appliances installed, everything a large family would need to live comfortably in. There was dust, but nothing other than that, no walkers, no bad smells.

It was… Dare I say it? Perfect?