Chapter

June 27

Daryl and Carol took the horse the next morning because it was easier getting through the brush on Freckles than on a motorcycle. They galloped to the spot where he had lost the trail in the creek the day before. Once there, he walked the shoreline while Carol followed closely on horseback. Sometimes he would pause, scan, and move on again. He got frustrated whenever she asked what he'd seen. "Just a coon," he'd mutter, or "damn deer" or "nothin' yet." Eventually she stopped asking. She decided to be Daryl's eyes and ears against walkers, if only to feel like she was contributing something. She kept thinking of the story of Hansel and Gretel and the trail of breadcrumbs. If only Sophia had thought to leave them one. Carol did, in case her little girl came back this way. She took her hunting knife and carved Soph, Dixon Cabin into a tree trunk, with an arrow pointing back. She did this every acre or so.

After two hours of slow riding and walking, they saw a dead walker. Carol dismounted and examined it with Daryl. It had been shot twice in the head. Carol scooped up a spent brass shell casing from the shore and handed it to him. He ran his thumb over it and said, ".22 caliber. Carl had that .22 rifle that Rick put a youth stock on. Maybe he got out on the other horse. Maybe they're together now. If so, they got her sword and his gun 'tween 'em. So they got a chance. And this means we're going in the right direction."

After another hour of hiking in that direction, he admitted there had been no sign for some time, but he kept pressing on anyway. "If they kept goin' this way, I'll find somethin' 'ventually." But they didn't, not that day. They had to turn back and gallop if they were going to get to the cabin before sunset, and there was no point in trying to study sign in the dark.

Daryl told Rick about the .22, casing, and the ex-cop's eyes flashed with hope. He had no such hopeful news about Fun Kingdom. "The herd hasn't moved on yet. The walkers are still picking over the animals probably." And their people, but he didn't say that. "We retreated at the gate."

Dixon and Rosita had brought back some canned food on their supply run, but they'd had no luck finding formula. Judith was given apple juice mixed with water to appease her. She could survive a few days on that, but she would be badly malnourished if they didn't get her formula or breast milk soon.

In the night, Carol wept again. Daryl vanished to walk the main road.

June 28
7:30 AM

Dixon loaded his racing bike into the military truck that was still largely filled with loot from their trip to northern Virginia. But first, he took out several boxes of ammunition for Daryl and Carol, three ten-gallons cans of gasoline for the motorcycle, three days' worth of canned food, and about a dozen sodas. He scratched behind Daisy's ears. "Be a good girl for Uncle Daryl. Help him find Sophia." The dog barked.

Carol handed Dixon a map with the location of Alexandria circled. He'd been in Shirewilt when they visited the community, but Aaron would recognize Dixon from the battle. He would want to see Mika, and because he was on the Alexandrian Council, Carol hoped he had influence there and that Alexandria might take them all in, at least temporarily. "I saw a baby there. His mother might be willing to nurse Judith."

Carol hugged Mika tightly and told her, "Dixon and your Uncle Aaron are going to look out for you until we can get there. You'll love Aaron's house." The thing she had once feared—that Aaron would take Mika into his home—was now the very thing she hoped for.

Meanwhile, Rick patted Daryl on the shoulder. "If anyone can find Carl, I know it's you. I'd give you the handheld radio, but I know it won't reach where we're going." They'd lost the ultra-long-distance radio in the fire.

Daryl nodded. "Get that baby some milk."

When the three-vehicle caravan had pulled out for northern Virginia, Daryl told Carol, "Gonna take Freckles and Daisy and go track. You should stay here, at the cabin, 'case Soph comes here. So she don't find it empty and move on."

Carol didn't need to do that. She could just leave a note for Sophia, telling her to stay. But she knew why Daryl wanted to track alone. He couldn't bear to see her disappointment if he couldn't pick up the trail. He couldn't work under her scrutiny, knowing that every backtracking step he took marked a question she was afraid to ask.

So Carol agreed to leave him to his solitary work, but she didn't stay at the cabin. There was no way she could sit around twiddling her thumbs, not with her little girl out there somewhere in that wild world—and Sophia was out there, she was certain, because she would not believe her daughter had been overcome by a walker or caught under some falling, flaming debris.

So Carol left Sophia a note, and then she went to build small animal traps and lay them in the woods, like Daryl had once taught her. She also emptied the shed of what remained inside, including some of the tools that hadn't been moved, and turned it into a barn of sorts for the horse by sawing out a window in the side and adding shutters that could open and close. She plucked and brought in a bushel of dry grass, and she drew water from Dixon's well to fill a large drinking bowl for Freckles. She drew yet more water and brought it inside the cabin to fill up the jugs and pitchers.

She had Daryl's dinner waiting for him on the kitchen table when he came back at sunset, head bent and hands empty. He said little as he ate other than, "Good idea on the barn" and, after tossing a scrap of SPAM to Daisy, who eagerly snapped it up beneath the table, "Gonna track alone again tomorrow."

Carol didn't argue the point. She understood he needed his space in this moment, that her pain only magnified his. "I was thinking," she replied, "maybe I could take your bike tomorrow and cruise the roads? In case Sophia and Carl lost the horse but found a vehicle? Rosita was teaching Sophia to drive, and Rick was teaching Carl. They could probably pull it off."

He didn't point out how ridiculous that sounded. He didn't point out that Carol was far from an accomplished motorcycle rider, or that she had never yet taken the bike out alone for more than a mile. He just said, "If that's what ya need to do."

9:30 PM

That night, Carol cried again. Daryl sat up and swung his feet out of bed. But before he could go walk the road, she reached for him. Her hand curled around his wrist. "Stay. Please. You can track alone in the day, but in the night, I need you beside me."

He returned to bed, rolled to her, and kissed her hard. He tugged on her tank top and ordered, "Take this off."

He couldn't control what had happened at Fun Kingdom. He couldn't control the fact that their daughter was missing. He couldn't control that her trail had run cold. He needed to control something.

So Carol let him.

She pulled the shirt over her head, and when he ordered, "Shorts and panties, too," she shucked out of those. He cupped a bare breast and squeezed. He brushed a callused thumb over the nipple, dipped his head, and suckled. She gasped when he flicked his tongue around the hardening bud. Despite all her pain and sorrow, her body instinctively responded to his.

After he dragged his mouth to the other breast, and savored that for a moment, he pulled back. "'M hard. Take me out."

Carol fumbled with the snap and zipper on his pants. He'd already shed his belt and all its gear before coming to bed. He groaned when she reached inside the open flap to grasp him. "Stroke it," he growled, and when she had for just a few seconds, he hastily shed his pants and ordered her to roll over on her stomach. "Now get up on your hand n' knees."

The sex was hard and fast as he took her from behind. His fingertips dug into her thighs where he gripped and positioned her. Carol came quickly, once, and then Daryl exploded with a guttural, possessive cry. When he collapsed atop her, his weight pushed her to her stomach, and he slid aside, half on her, half off, his head bent and his face buried between her bare shoulder blade and neck. She didn't mind it, his body like a blanket on hers. She needed that closeness, needed him to cover her up.

"Sorry," he breathed. "I was too rough."

"No," she assured him.

His breath rose and fell in rolling waves of heat against her naked flesh. And then his warm tears wet her skin as he muttered, "'M sorry. 'M sorry I ain't found 'er yet. I'm so sorry, Carol."

"Shhhh…" She rolled out from beneath him, turned to face him, and bent his head to her breast. "Shhh…"

He wrapped his arms around her in return, and there, cocooned in each other's embrace, they faded into slumber.

This time, he slept through the night.

July 3, 2011

Daryl continued to track alone for the next few days, with only his two animal companions-Freckles and Daisy. He said he thought maybe there had been a third person on that horse with Sophia and Carl. He said he thought maybe they had doubled back in the woods at some point. Maybe.

Carol continued to fill her days with trapping, skinning, and roasting small animals, foraging for berries in the forest, and riding Daryl's motorcycle along the highway and side roads in hope of randomly lucking upon Sophia. She never went more than twenty miles, to conserve gas, but she was growing more confident on the bike.

This evening, Daryl returned with what he wanted Carol to believe was a scrap of Sophia's clothing, from some kind of floral-print canvas shirt. Carol didn't have the heart to tell him that Sophia didn't own any floral shirts, or to remind him that their little girl had gone missing in June in Georgia and was hardly likely to be wearing something as heavy as a canvas shirt. No doubt he knew all that. He wanted to offer her that shred of a shirt as a shred of hope, and so she took it.

July 5, 2011

Carol was gradually becoming one with this iron horse. Today she rode all the way back to Fun Kingdom. Maybe Sophia had backtracked there, after waiting for the herd to move on.

The bulk of the herd had indeed wandered off. Carol rode around the wreckage, avoiding the walkers that lingered, but discovered nothing new. She counted what skeletons she could see, but there were no doubt others buried beneath the rubble. There was no trace of Sophia, nothing that screamed she had come back there, but also nothing that screamed she had died there.

Carol parked outside the brick warehouse, with its caved-in roof, and killed several nearby lingering walkers. She took the first down with her throwing knife and the rest with the bayonet on her AR-15. It felt good to stab, like punching a bag repeatedly in anger.

When the corpses littered the asphalt, Carol recovered her knife and made her way cautiously inside over the ash and rubble. Wearing a pair of those fire-retardant aviation gloves, in case anything was still too hot, she was able to recover two heavy green metal cannisters of ammunition, which had blackened but not burned through, a fire-retardant fuel can with five gallons of gas, and a few intact, if misshapen, cans of food. She loaded the luggage rack of the bike until it was full and then roared on as a small pack of walkers lurched toward her from another part of the park. She escaped through the front gate, stopping only long enough to dismount, swing the gate closed, and tie it loosely with a chain. On the entrance she duct-taped a note:

Sophia—

Find us at Dixon's cabin.

Love,
Mom & Dad

She was experiencing some light cramping by the time she got back to the cabin. In the outhouse, she noticed the faintest bit of spotting in her underwear.

July 9, 2011

Daryl vanished into the woods at each sunrise with the horse and dog and returned each sunset to sit at the table and eat the food Carol had trapped, scavenged, and prepared. She stopped asking him what he had found. He never found anything, but he kept going anyway, morning after morning, night after night, mile after mile, direction upon direction.

This morning, Carol rode Daryl's motorcycle along the highway and side roads, wandering aimlessly, hoping by some miracle of luck to simply stumble upon her daughter. When she returned, the tank was on empty. The bike was coasting on fumes. She refilled it with one of the fuel cans Dixon had left them.

She was just screwing on the gas cap when Freckles came galloping, riderless, toward the trip wire. "Whoa!" she called. "Stop!"

The horse obeyed, rearing to a halt before the wire. Carol ducked under the trip wire and took the horse's reins. "Where's Daryl?" she asked it anxiously, as if it could talk.

The horse only whinnied. Carol grabbed her rifle, a first aid kit—just in case-and mounted the mare. Her heart hammering the entire time, she spurred the horse back in the direction from which it had come. Carol didn't know what else to do. She was no tracker.

Fortunately, she didn't have to be. Daisy's barking drifted through the early evening air, and she followed it until it grew louder and louder. She found Daryl at the bottom of a ravine, bruised and bloodied and scraped up, lying on his back, weakly trying to stab a walker with a snapped crossbow bolt as Daisy, barking madly, drew a second undead creature away from him.

From atop the ravine, Carol shot both walkers. It was a while before she found a windy path down. Once on flat ground again, she galloped to Daryl, vaulted anxiously off the horse, and frantically checked him for bite marks. She helped him to sit up, gave him water to drink, checked for broken bones, and examined and cleaned the bloody gash in his side. "What the hell happened?"

"Horse got spooked by a snake. Tossed me down the hill. Hit some rocks on the way down. Landed hard on a piece of driftwood. Cut m'self bad." He nodded to the sharp edge of a thick, bloody branch broken off from a piece of driftwood. He'd apparently pulled that thing straight out of himself.

"It looks like the cut is pretty deep. I think you need stitches. I've got more medical supplies in the cabin. Let's get you back and patched up."

She helped him onto the horse. Exhausted, he slumped forward on its mane, and Carol sat behind him, arms around him, and guided the animal cautiously back to the cabin, where she sewed up Daryl, got him some dinner, and then settled him in bed. Exhausted, he fell asleep almost immediately.

July 10, 2011

Given Daryl's wounded condition and yesterday's harrowing experience, Carol didn't expect to find him taking down the saddle from the wall of the makeshift barn in the early rays of sunlight.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she walked out of the cabin and hurried toward him.

"Hell's it look like? Saddlin' Freckles. So as I can head out and track Sophia."

"Daryl, you're in no condition!"

"Feel fine," he insisted, but he grunted in pain as he tried to heave the saddle on the horse, and it ended up sliding to the earth. He hissed and put a hand on his stitched-up side.

Carol gently rested a hand on his shoulder, but he brushed her off by stumbling away. "I'm fine! Just help me get the damn saddle on." He nodded down at it on the ground. "Gonna go find our girl."

"We don't know if we're going to find her, Daryl," Carol said softly. "We don't."

Daryl looked up from the saddle at her, and his eyes flashed fire. "What?"

Carol's eyes misted. "I can't lose you, too."

"I ain't gonna get lost. And our little girl, she ain't gone. Not permanently."

Carol hugged herself. "Daryl, you have to stop this. It's been days now. You almost died yesterday. You would have died if I hadn't found you. You have to stop looking for her."

Daryl's eyes shimmered with disbelief. He shook his head.

Carol swallowed. "She's gone, Daryl, our little girl is gone. Wherever she is, alive or dead, she's not here anymore. We're not going to find her in these woods or along these roads. It's been too many days. You know that. You know the trail's run cold. If she hasn't come to this cabin, and she hasn't gone back to Fun Kingdom by now…we're not going to find her. You know that."

"I don't know that!" he roared. "You don't know that!" He lowered his voice when she flinched and her eyes misted. "It's Georgia. Ain't the mountains of Tibet. She's probably holed up in some country house somewhere. I'll find her. 'Ventually. Now help me with the goddamn saddle."

Carol was crying now. "Don't," she choked, "please don't. You'll run yourself into the ground. I'll lose you, too!"

His nostrils flared and he gritted his teeth as if biting back the tears that were threatening to rise to his eyes.

"We have to move on, Daryl. We have to join the others in Virginia. Who knows, maybe Sophia went north. Maybe she went north knowing we had allies there. You can't keep looking here. I can't lose you. I need you. Our child needs you."

"'S why I'm lookin' for 'er. 'Cause she needs me to."

"Not just Sophia. Both of our children." She seized his hand.

"Mika? I'm sure Dixon and Aaron are looking out for—"

"—No. Our other child needs you, too." She pressed his palm flat against her stomach.