"Where the hell's our van?" Daryl asked what we all were thinking. I was sure we were in the right place.
"We left it right there. Who would take it?" Oh, I had a pretty good idea who it was and what that meant for us.
"Merle," Rick and I answered simultaneously and Glenn's face fell.
"He's gonna be taking some vengeance back to camp," Daryl mumbled and I nodded my head.
"Then what are we still doing here? We should go. Hopefully we make it before he starts spilling blood…" I didn't really wait for the others to respond since it was clear what we should do. I pulled the strap of my rifle tighter and started jogging off at a moderate pace that I would be able to keep up for some time.
"Let's go! Ya know she might be right 'bout my brother." I heard the gravel shift behind me as the others followed me back up the path we had driven in on and soon caught up to me.
"Sure you can keep this pace up until we make it back to camp?" Rick had fallen into step next to me.
"No. And I don't need to all the way back. I just want to cover as much ground as possible before night falls. We still don't know for sure if Merle took the van, so…" I looked back over my shoulder to see if the others were still following us. The truth was that we really didn't know if it had been Merle and if it was, if he'd even return to the camp. It could easily have been someone else scavenging the place.

Getting back had taken us several hours and, as presumed, night had already fallen when we came close to reaching the camp. We hadn't run as far as I'd hoped we would or we might have had to leave T-Dog behind since he couldn't keep up with the rest of us for long.
We were currently making our way through trees and brush, careful not to trip over anything. I grabbed T-Dog's arm and pulled him towards me. He gave me a confused look until I picked up a piece of wood and slammed it where his right foot would have landed with the next step. Metal jaws snapping together made everyone flinch and T went pale as far as I could tell in the dim light under all those leaves blocking the moonlight.
"Careful where you step. There might be more forgotten bear traps," I told the others.
"How'd ya know that was there?" Daryl's gruff voice cut through the thick silence like a knife.
"My dad used to take me and my brother hunting a lot. It's been a while, but I still remember what a hidden animal trap looks like," I tried to explain. To be honest, it had been more of a feeling in my gut that there was something hidden, I hadn't been out hunting since my dad's accident that put him in a wheelchair.
"Yeah, sure…" The redneck was cut off by sudden screams and gunshots, clearly coming from our camp.
"Move!" Rick yelled and sprinted off towards his family, Glenn yelling behind him to go faster at the sound of a child screaming. As we finally broke through the tree line, we saw nothing less than utter chaos. Walkers had overrun the camp and were going after the inhabitants. Bodies littered the ground and I wasn't able to say if they were the dead or our people. Not hesitating for one second, I raised my bow and shot the walker closest to me, realizing that they hadn't noticed the five additional people that had emerged from the woods. The others next to me started taking out walkers as well. A tap on my right shoulder as I took out another one with my knife grabbed my attention. I followed the instant command to duck only for Daryl to fire a bolt over my shoulder into a walker that had snuck up on my right side.
"Thanks." He gave me a nod and crashed the butt of his crossbow into the next walker's head.

And all of a sudden it was over, Rick shooting the last walking corpse. He instantly called out for his wife and son and rushed to embrace the shaken boy. A movement to my right got my attention and with a raised bow I slowly walked towards the spot near the RV. I let out a relieved sigh and lowered the arrow.
"Hey, it's okay. You can come out now. Sophia, right?" The trembling girl nodded, still curled up against the vehicle with her arms tight around her knees. I threw my bow back over my shoulder and crouched down in front of her. I didn't touch her, not wanting to get too close, but reached my hand out to her. "It's alright. It's over now."
Hesitantly she placed her hand in mine and I gently pulled her towards me. Even though she hadn't known me for more than a day, she trusted me. She threw her arms around my neck and started sobbing into my shirt.
"Hey.. Shhh. Come on. Let's find your mommy, I'm sure she is worried sick for you, okay?" The girl nodded but seemed unable to move. Not caring that she was twelve years old, I scooped her up and held her to my front like I would do with a toddler. Rounding the RV with the girl in my arms, I took in the sight of the camp. Thankfully it was mostly walkers on the ground but it seemed enough of our own had been killed. Only a few feet away, Andrea was mourning the death of her sister and I could make out a few other people I couldn't put a name to that were grieving their loved ones.
I put a hand to the back of Sophia's head, not wanting the girl to look and see the carnage before us.
"Oh my god! Sophia!" I turned to find Carol running towards us and tried to calm her down when she stopped in front of me. She pulled her daughter from me and the child started sobbing even more now that she was with her mother."Thank you. Thank you so much!" Before I knew what was happening, the older woman pulled me into a tight hug. "Thank you for looking out for my baby."
"I didn't do anything. She hid under the RV, I just pulled her out when it was over and promised to help her find you," I tried to explain to the shaken mother. She didn't seem to care that that was all I had done for Sophia. She thanked me again and finally let go of me. I looked around her, wondering where that good for nothing husband of hers was. She seemed to notice the question in my eyes and shook her head, apparently not wanting to say it out loud in front of the girl.
"I am sorry," I told her, despite having less sympathy for that man than I would have for a steak on my plate.
"Don't be. He had it coming…" Carol whispered and I could see the conflict in her eyes. She was free of him, but he had been her husband.
The remaining night was rather short, none of us getting much sleep with all the crying and riled up people. At one point I just slumped down in a camping chair in front of some tent, I didn't know nor care at this point who the owner was. Not able to keep my eyes open for much longer while I watched Andrea next to her sister, I fell asleep.

I couldn't have slept for long when I was woken by a gruff voice.
"Got no place of yer own?" I blinked and had to shield my eyes from the rising sun to be able to see clearly who was in front of me. Daryl looked down at me with little expression on his face as I looked up at him, still a little sleep drunk.
"What?" I mumbled, my mind still a little slow on the uptake. The hunter rolled his eyes and gestured to the tent next to me.
"Next time ask before ya fall asleep in my chair. I don't want people near my stuff." Finally his words registered with my brain and I understood that I had fallen asleep next to his tent. I let out a groan and got to my feet.
"Didn't know this was yours. Honestly didn't care much whose it was when I closed my eyes. What time is it anyways?" Daryl shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek.
"Early still. Get outta here." I huffed and just turned to leave.
"You know what, Dixon? I liked you better yesterday when you weren't acting like a total asshole." I had turned around and the hunter looked at me with indifference.
"Yeah, whatever." He went into his tent and I stomped off towards Glenn, to help him with piling up the dead walkers. I swear if this is going to be a habit now… Maybe he is more like his brother than I thought, at least as unstable.

"Need a hand?"
Glenn looked up at me and brushed his hand over his forehead to wipe away some sweat. "Thanks. I was thinking, we should give our people a proper grave. I mean… You know?" I nodded at him, understanding that it didn't seem right to burn them alongside the rotten carcasses. I moved to help the Asian, Korean as I had found out by now, throw another walker onto the pile of bodies. We worked in silence, clearing the area of the corpses, while Jacqui and Jim were building a second pile a good distance from ours. After putting away the last body, I looked around and noticed that Rick, Daryl and Shane were standing next to the RV, looking over at Andrea who still sat in the dirt next to her sister. I slowly walked over, wanting to know what the plan was for now.
"Take the shot. Clean, in the brain from here. Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance," Daryl stated while hinting at Amy's body.
"Are you serious?" The hunter's eyes shot to me. This had to be a joke, they weren't really considering to just put a bolt in the girl's skull while her sister was weeping next to her.
"What's it to you? Ain't none of your business," Shane snapped at me and I glared back, not ready to let this go.
"The hell it is. Like it or not, I am not leaving, so get used to me having an opinion. Would you want somebody to shoot your brother or sister while you are still sitting next to them in grief? I'd go ballistic over that." The former cop snorted and took a step towards me that would have been intimidating if I weren't used to such behavior.
"I didn't ask for your opinion, princess." Before I could get back at him, Rick pushed between us.
"Enough of that. We are not doing anything now. Let her grieve, she will come around. She was her sister and as long as she doesn't turn, Andrea won't see anything other than that." Shane sent another glare my way and I just flipped him off with an annoyed growl.
Suddenly Jacqui started screaming that Jim had been bit which he denied, telling everyone and himself that he was alright. T-Dog snuck up on him and restrained him so Daryl could pull up his shirt to reveal the large bite on his lower abdomen. I closed my eyes for a second, silently wondering if there were more people that had gotten bitten during last night's events and were too afraid to tell.

Of course the revealing of Jim's bite caused another discussion about smashing his and Amy's brains before they could pose a threat to anyone, up to the point where Shane and Daryl were almost at each other's throats and Dale caught in the middle of it, trying to reason that maybe Dixon was right this time.
"He's sick. A sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?", Rick asked and I had to agree to some extent. Where was the line between being bitten and being a goner?
"The line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be." I frowned at the redneck's cold words. We didn't know if there really was nothing we could do for Jim at this point. Maybe if we could somehow keep his body up and running until we found a way to stop the virus in his system.
I almost missed out the discussion between the two former cops about the possibility of the C.D.C. still being up and running, or if they moved the facility to Fort Benning and if we should go there.
"Fort Benning might be up and running, but I wouldn't be too sure about that." The men and Lori turned to me, giving me something between a surprised and skeptical look.
"What do you mean, Rachel?" Lori asked, her hands at her sides while Shane glared at me again.
"When we were dropped off at Atlanta, the first thing that crashed was communication. Fort Benning was the first we lost connection to. The place might still be safe, but it could just as well be overrun. And before moving the C.D.C. staff anywhere, they would try and put up a military safe zone around it before abandoning their research and laboratories and move them anywhere else that might be less easy to protect in case they got overrun." Everyone fell silent at my words, even Shane didn't have anything to say this time.
"Rachel's right. The military were on the front lines of this thing. They got overrun. We've all seen that. The C.D.C. is our best choice and Jim's only chance," Rick then backed me up.
"You go looking for aspirin, do what you need to do. Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!" Daryl picked up the pickaxe again and made his way over to Jim attempting to take a swing at his head and be done with talking. Rick aimed his gun at the redneck and told him to back down. I didn't know why I did it, but without thinking, I got between them, the gun now trained at my head and my body preventing Daryl from smashing Jim's head in.
"Would you all calm down, for Christ's sake?!" I yelled at them, looking at both Rick and Daryl alike. Both looked back at me with surprise since none of them had expected me to just put myself in between them.
"We don't kill the living," Rick stated calmly and put away his colt.
"That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head,", the hunter huffed with his eyes still on me rather than the cop. Shane again spoke up, taking Rick's side on this one and told Daryl to put the ax down and let it go. The redneck let go of the tool and stomped off, bumping his shoulder into Shane's on purpose. Rick took the opportunity to get Jim away, which left just Shane and me once Lori went after her husband with a last indifferent glance at the other cop. With a sigh I picked up the pick ax and made to leave as well when Shane grabbed me by my wrist.
"Let go," I demanded with a calm voice, not wanting him to touch me, but he ignored me.
"You think you know everything, huh?"
I furrowed my brows at his statement and looked up at him clueless to what he was hinting at. "You might want to be a little more specific."
"Just 'cause you were military doesn't mean you know anything that's going on. Fort Benning could be still running and a safe place for us."
I shook my head and tried to pull free of his grasp on my wrist. "You didn't listen, did you? I said they might still be up and operating, that I only know for sure that they were the first we lost any connection with when all that shit went down. And that I doubt that they moved the C.D.C. over there. I never said I knew anything for sure!" I shot back at him, only for him to step closer and back me up a few steps.
"Then keep your damned mouth shut! Since the moment you came out of that van, you've been throwing some attitude. You're a civilian now, start acting the part, princess," he snapped and got into my face. I clenched my fist at my side, digging my nails into the palm of my hand.
"You can try to pull rank on me all you like, deputy! If I am a civilian now, so are you and you don't get to order me around, no matter what you think. If speaking my mind isn't to your liking, then don't listen, but stop giving me shit about it. I am not trying to be a leader or anything, but I won't stop speaking up when I feel the need to." I saw the slight tick in his jaw but he didn't get the chance to say anything else about that matter.
"Rachel, I could use your help. Glenn said you were pretty good at patching up people." I looked around Shane to see Dale and gave him a soft smile.
"I'm coming. Shane and I were done talking anyways. Ain't that right?"
"Careful…" Shane growled and finally let go of me. I stepped around him and followed the older man back towards where the RV was set up.
"Everything alright? The two of you seemed a little tense back there." I looked over to the man beside me.
"Nothing worth the attention. We just had a disagreement over something, he'll get over it," I deflected. I had no intention of telling anyone about the words exchanged between the two of us. I was new to the group and me stirring up some conflict wasn't going to help anybody right now. Maybe over time he would lay off with that attitude towards me, he might have his reasons for behaving like this, same as I had my reasons to snap at him as soon as he got in my face.
"You didn't really need my help, did you?" I asked and Dale shook his head.
"Only with burying our deceased. Honestly I just wanted to make sure Shane didn't do anything back there. I know the man has a temper and him getting in your face…" I cut him off which seemed to take him by surprise.
"Thank you. You don't know me and you didn't need to do that."
"Yes, I did. Actually, you remind me a little of what my late wife used to be like when we first met back in the day." I smiled at him and made a mental note to ask him about his wife some other time. I meant what I said, he really didn't need to feel responsible for me, and for what it was worth I respected him for it.

Reaching the RV, I parted from Dale as he went over to where Andrea was still crouching next to her sister's body. I didn't feel the need to get close to her right now, though it wouldn't have mattered anyways since the blonde didn't seem to recognize much that was going on around her. I walked over to where Daryl was slamming another pickaxe into the dead walkers's heads, just to be sure they were truly dead. Stepping closer, I realized he would be doing the same to last night's casualties, maybe a little more gentle than before if you could say that. He looked up when I approached and bit the inside of his cheek again, something that I labeled as nervous behavior by now.
"Need somethin'?" He kept looking straight at me and I just shrugged my shoulders.
"Wanted to see if you need some help." He shook his head and lifted the ax again, ready to slam it down again.
"Nah, I'm good." At least his answer was friendlier than what I had gotten this morning. "Ya just keep buttin' heads with Shane. Keeps him off my ass."
I let out a snort. "It's not like I am begging him to be a dick…" The hunter stopped what he was doing again.
"Why d'ya keep mouthin' off to him if ya want him outta yer hair?" I looked up at him and into his blue eyes. They weren't judging but curious, as if he was trying to figure out the solution to a riddle. I noticed how his accent was thicker, something that I had only experienced happening up to now when his temper was threatening to get out of hand. I let out a sigh and rubbed one hand over my neck while the other stayed on my hip.
"Honestly, I don't know."
Now it was the redneck's turn to snort. "Bullshit."
"What do you want to hear, Dixon?" I growled back.
"Forget 'bout it. Ain't my business why he's so determined to rile ya up and why ya let him. Maybe ya should consider keepin' yer mouth shut around him. Don't come runnin' to me when he knocks ya on yer ass for it." He turned to the next body, Carol's husband Ed, and raised the pickaxe only for the woman to stop him.
"I'll do it. He's my husband." She took the pickaxe from Daryl and raised it over her head. It took her a few moments to find the strength to actually embed the tool in her husband's skull. When she finally did it, it seemed to trigger something in her as she started to swing the ax down over and over until Ed's head was nothing more than a bloody mass.
"Carol! Carol, that's enough!" I gently grabbed her and pulled her trembling form against me while Daryl pried the pickaxe as gently as possible from her hands. The now crying woman fell against me and I struggled to hold her up and comfort her.
"It's alright. It's gonna be okay. He is gone, he can't hurt you or your daughter anymore…" I met Daryl's gaze as I tried to calm the woman in my arms and he gave me a thankful nod since he was at a loss as to what to do with her.
"Come on. Let's find Sophia and the other kids, keep them distracted until the others are done with the bodies." Carol nodded, still unable to speak, but she tried to stand on her own and brush away the tears. I still had an arm around her as I led her away from the unrecognizable thing that once was her husband.

Daryl watched as Rachel led Carol away from the RV towards her tent and daughter. He was thankful for not having to deal with the weeping woman. He really didn't know what to make of the blonde. He had been impressed when she started treating the people in Atlanta, especially how she put that boy's shoulder back in place. She was definitely hot headed; he wasn't trying to be mean when he told her to be careful around Shane. He had seen the looks that asshole gave her and how he had gotten in her face before Dale interfered. Hell, he still didn't even know why he cared. Either way, he felt bad for snapping at her when he found her this morning in the chair by his tent, with her legs pulled up and her head on her knees. He had considered letting her sleep, until his brother's mocking voice sounded loudly in his head. 'Growing soft for a nice pair of tits now, little D? Why don't ya invite her to sleep in yer tent while ya at it? Ya know she wouldn't even look at ya if ya were dirt under her boot.'
He let out an annoyed growl at the thought of his brother. He should be all that mattered to him, especially after finding his severed hand. They should have left this group when they had the chance, he mused while walking back towards his tent. He was angry at Merle for abandoning him again. He could have just waited on that damn rooftop. He should have known that Daryl would come for him! The hunter felt the frustration rise to the surface again, mixing with the boiling anger.
"Fuck!" He sent the bucket flying for the second time in a short while now. He had no idea what to do with himself, which had always been a problem, even before the dead started coming back. He walked over to retrieve the damn thing he had kicked away, cursing under his breath at the mess. It had completely slipped his mind that this was the bucket he had gutted the squirrels into.