Disclaimer: I own nothing from The Walking Dead. All characters belong to the creators of the television series and graphic novels.
Author's Note: Hi, guys! It's been a minute. I want to thank those of you who took a chance and opened this story. I know my track record hasn't been great with finishing stories lately. Lots of life stuff I won't put you through explaining. However, I'm trying something new with this one. I've already gotten a good chunk of this story finished, and have been working on it for a while now. I hope you enjoy it, and please let me know what you think! Thanks!
Chasing Horizons
One
Somewhere in the distance, thunder shook the earth, warning of another storm system coming through. The soft patter of rain on the tin roof threatened to lull Carol into another deep sleep.
Sleep. It was a strange thing to get used to after months of nearly-sleepless nights hunkering down in the dark and praying for the sun to come up without incident. Still, it felt nice to lay in a big, soft bed on a rainy day. It almost felt before. Before the monsters. Before the bombs. Before the world crumbled to its knees and left everyone with two choices. Survive or die.
A little whimper pulled Carol's attention down to the red-faced infant hungrily suckling at her breast. Sharp little baby-nails dug into her flesh, and big, blue eyes looked up at her curiously. She smiled and stroked the soft, reddish-brown peach fuzz on the back of the little one's head.
A clap of thunder—this time closer and louder—shook the house. The baby startled and unlatched, his little chin quivering as a cry built up inside of him. Carol took the opportunity to sit up, pick up the baby and switch him to her other breast. She gently stroked his back to calm him until he realized he was still hungry and opened up to latch again.
Carol sighed softly and leaned back against the pillows. She adjusted her shirt to cover her exposed breast and propped another pillow under her arm to let the baby rest on.
"Don't worry. It's just a storm. We won't let some silly little storm scare us, will we? No. It'll pass. I promise." She stroked the top of his head, and his eyes rolled back before closing completely. He continued to nurse, and Carol looked toward the window with a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.
She'd always loved storms. The loud thunder, the bright lightning, the rushing rain on the rooftop. She always slept better during a storm. There was something cozy and protective about them. They kept people inside, behind walls where it was safe. Thunderstorms were old friends that didn't mind if you stayed inside and curled up under a blanket with a good book.
Another crack of thunder told Carol the storm was nearly overhead, and the creak of footfalls coming up the stairs brought Carol's attention to the bedroom doorway. Moments later, Sophia came bounding the room, her reddish-blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail behind her head. Clasped firmly in her hands was a pair of binoculars.
She stood at the window and peered out toward the edge of the field by the house.
"Three walkers."
"Three. That's not so bad. We've dealt with worse." Carol watched Sophia lower the binoculars. She didn't turn around. She kept looking out the window, still and straight.
"They might get the chickens. We only have three left."
"Sophia, the storm will drown out any noise the chickens make. The windchime on the farm across the field will distract them. Watch." Sophia watched, and sure enough, the walkers changed course and headed straight for the old farmhouse a mile away. They would find nothing there but a scavenged shell of what used to be someone's home.
Sophia relaxed and turned, her dark, brown eyes fixating on her mother across the room. Carol could hardly believe the girl standing in front of her was the same little girl she'd given birth two twelve years ago. Less than a year ago, she'd been a shy, sweet little girl who, until her parents' divorce, hadn't had a worry or fear in the world except maybe the monsters under her bed. But she'd grown out of that years ago. Now, she had skills that would make a boy scout envious. She had a sharp eye, great aim and could hit a walker between the eyes from fifteen yards.
She'd grown up a lot in the past months, and while there were new monsters to fear in the world, Sophia was quickly adapting to the ways of the world, and as much as Carol hated that the world Sophia was born into was gone, she was thankful she and her daughter had learned how to survive their harsh new realities.
Sophia leaned back against the windowsill, and Carol patted the side of the bed.
"Come sit down."
"I don't want to leave," Sophia finally admitted. "I like it here."
"I know," Carol said quietly. "But we've only got enough food for three more days. Six if we stretch it out with the chickens." Sophia's shoulders slumped. "Maybe there's another place we can find food, and…"
"The closest town is six miles away, and it's picked clean," Carol said gently. "We were lucky to find this place. We got three good months out of it, but we have to move on." She watched Sophia nod. She knew she understood, but the place was secure, and had provided them with an entire cellar and pantry full of food, not to mention plenty of gasoline in the generator. The spring hadn't been too cold, so they hadn't had to use power, and there had been a few dozen chickens living free range around the farm. She and Sophia had managed to gather them and coop them up, and they'd managed to save their three best egg layers for last.
"Where?" Sophia finally asked.
"It's your turn to pick," Carol said with a shrug. Sophia bit her bottom lip and looked away for a moment. "Think about it, Sophia. Just think. I know you have good instincts." She nodded to the drawer beside the bed. "Map's in there." Sophia reached over and opened the drawer to retrieve the map. She studied it for a while before looking up at her mother.
"Is it July?"
"September," Carol pointed out. "Give or take a few days." Sophia nodded. "Winter's coming. We could go down toward Florida. We won't have to worry about snow." Carol watched as Sophia thought silently for a moment. "What about west?"
"Well, what about it?"
"Remember when me, you and dad went to the Grand Canyon?" Carol nodded. "Well, there were a lot of places where there weren't a lot of houses. Less people means less walkers."
"It could also mean fewer supplies."
"Better hunting," Sophia reasoned. "Less shelter. We'd use a lot of gas." Sophia poured over the map for a few minutes more. Meanwhile, the baby had stopped nursing, and Carol buttoned her shirt and swaddled the baby while giving Sophia a little longer to think.
She couldn't help the little smile that perked up at the corner of her mouth. Sophia had always been smart, but she was learning to speak her mind more. Carol already knew which direction they were heading. She just wanted to watch Sophia think it through and come to the conclusion herself. Finally, Sophia looked up.
"We're here," she announced, placing her finger over Palmetto on the map. "We could take 14 down to Newnan. They have a couple of grocery stores. There might be something left." Carol smiled. "And if it's no good there, we could head north and then west toward Birmingham. Maybe keep going." She looked down again. "Maybe?"
"Make a decision," Carol urged. Sophia paused for a moment, took a deep breath and gave a short nod.
"Yeah. Yes. That's my decision."
...
The baby got restless at night and liked to be walked around the house. Weary and restless herself, Carol walked the halls of the old farm house.
Overall, he was a good baby. He fussed when he was hungry or needed a change, but Carol kept him close out of fear of him working himself up into a fit that would call walkers from all over.
He was born during one of the worst storms of the year, and thankfully the thunder had drowned his cries. Still, it was as if walkers could sense new life they needed to try to get their teeth into, because within days of his birth, a small herd crossed through the field.
Putting down walkers three days postpartum wasn't exactly her idea of a good time, but between her and Sophia, they had gotten it done quietly.
Carol peered into the room Sophia had claimed as her own when they'd first arrived before the baby's birth. She was sprawled out on the mattress with one arm thrown over her eyes like she'd slept nearly every night since she was an infant. Though it was dark, Carol knew a knife was on Sophia's bedside table. On the floor by the bed was a shotgun. It was a way of life now, sleeping with weapons at the ready.
Carol looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms, and she still felt a sense of awe. Part of her still couldn't believe she'd survived this long, let alone brought another baby into the world. The other hardly recognized the woman she once was. She wasn't the woman that once begged Ed not to leave her. She'd changed. Sophia had changed too. No longer was she the little girl that used to cry herself to sleep at night wondering why her dad left and never called. No longer was she the little girl that used to get weak at the sight of blood.
She was the girl that pushed through it and became the person she needed to be. And Carol took a certain amount of pride in that.
The day she realized she was pregnant and sought out a test to confirm it herself was the day she knew that her time on this earth might very well be limited. Women died in childbirth with modern medicine, and she'd had a difficult pregnancy with Sophia. If something happened and she didn't make it, Sophia had to survive. And she'd done her best to teach her and learn with her so that if the time came that she was alone, she'd know what to do, where to go and what she needed to keep surviving.
She still lay awake some nights wondering how it all had happened so fast. One day she was a nurse at Grady Memorial trying to make enough money to help Ed save for their dream home. The next she was watching him drive away with no intention of coming back. She could still remember those awful months before the divorce was finalized. She could remember wondering how her life had come to what it was, and she would lose sleep dreaming up a new life for her and her daughter. She hadn't counted on a nightmare. She hadn't counted on the rubble of her life crumbling even more and leaving her running screaming down the road gasping for air as the earth shook a hundred miles from where the bombs were dropping in Atlanta. Who that woman was felt like a distant memory.
"Mom?" Sophia's bed creaked as she sat up. "Is everything ok?"
"Everything's fine," Carol whispered. "Go back to sleep."
"What time is it?"
"We have a few hours before the sunrise." She could hear Sophia's heavy sigh from the dark, and she stepped into the room, coming over to sit on the edge of her bed. "I can hear you thinking." The clouds cleared out of the way of the moon, illuminating Sophia's face in an ethereal blue. "Talk to me."
"Do you think dad's dead?" The last word was so quiet Carol barely missed it. "I mean, he could be, couldn't he?"
"He could be," Carol said quietly. "I don't know, Sophia. A lot of people died. Some people were lucky like us."
"Well, do you think he came back for me? For us? Do you think maybe if we stayed at home longer he would've come back for us?"
"I don't know, Sophia. We can't think about that now." Carol reached out to brush her hand against Sophia's cheek. "I know your dad loved you."
"You don't have to lie for him."
"He did love you. I can't speak for him. I can't explain whatever the hell was going through his head when he did what he did, but I do know he loved you. He just let his own selfish needs get in the way of that." She hadn't meant it to come out so harsh, but that was reality now, and Sophia had been old enough when he left to understand that he was the asshole in the situation. "I do know that sometimes people are selfish. I've been selfish too."
"But you never abandoned your family. You didn't leave me. You didn't leave him." Sophia nodded to her brother.
"And I won't. Not by choice. But if something happens to me, you can take care of yourself. That's all I ask for. And you can take care of him, help him learn the things we've had to learn." Sophia was silent for a moment.
"Mom?"
"Yeah."
"What'll you tell Henry when he asks about his dad someday?" Big question for somebody who not so long ago was just a little kid. Carol took a deep breath and shook her head.
"Get some sleep, kiddo. Big day ahead of us." She could practically hear Sophia roll her eyes, but the girl just sighed and lay back down. Carol leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, as she had since Sophia was a baby.
She left the room, carrying Henry into her room. She placed him in the bassinet beside the bed and watched him stretch in his sleep. Moments later, he was still, and Carol turned down the lamp light on the table by her bed, crawled under the covers and tried to force herself not to think about what Sophia had asked her. Only now she knew it was going to be the only thing she could think about, and there was now very little hope for sleep.