AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I have to admit that it took me a while to write this one. Some chapters are really hard to write. I'm not great at action, and that makes action chapters very difficult. I sometimes, shamefully, put them off longer than I should because I'm afraid of simply not being able to get them done. I finally got this one written, though, and I hope you enjoy it! We're moving right on along.

Please don't forget to let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy!

111

The thing about chaos is that it seems immediate and all-encompassing. It's not there, and then it is.

Daryl had lain awake for a while trying to figure out exactly what it was that was making his skin practically feel electric and his brain nearly buzz.

There was something that wasn't right, but he couldn't put his finger on what that was, exactly. Outside, all was quiet. There was no noise from the tents. There were no voices. There were no doors opening or closing, no engines cranking to life, and no tires on the slightly crunchy gravel scattered in the long farm driveway.

From inside the tent, Daryl saw no sign of lights outside. There were no dancing lights of lanterns or flashlights. No headlights. It was so dark, in fact, that it seemed almost perfectly black beyond the cloth of the tent—like everything had been swallowed up.

Maybe it was the feeling of absolute absence that made Daryl uncomfortable.

Beside him, Carol slept soundly for the first time all night. She snored quietly—proof that she was sleeping well and maybe that she was struggling a little with some seasonal allergies or something similar. Daryl hated to risk waking her or disturbing her at all, but he eased away from her as carefully as he could and slipped out of the tent.

Outside, Daryl didn't bother with a light. The blackness of the tent meant that his eyes were adjusted to the blackness of the night—the darker blackness telling him, as he looked around, where more solid structures could be seen.

The darker blackness of the wall—the slowly moving wall that had been built since he'd gone to bed—that seemed to block out everything on the far side of the farm was what got Daryl's attention. His hair stood up on end. All at once, he realized that it wasn't completely quiet. When he listened for the not-quiet, he heard the noise—the kinds of sounds to which their ears had simply gone deaf as a common part of their surroundings, like the sounds of crickets and little night frogs calling out that the sun was going down and the creek water was welcoming.

Unlike the crickets and croaking, though, the growling and slow, steady sound of shuffling feet made Daryl's blood run cold in his veins.

"Carol," he said, daring to raise his voice only a little. "Carol! Get up! You gotta get up. Come on…get on just enough clothes. The rest don't matter. We gotta go. Gotta go now."

"What? What is it?" Carol asked, stirring out of her sleep. Daryl grabbed for his shirt and shook her, inside the tent, before quickly backing back out again.

"Come on," he said. "Ain't got time to ask shit—it's Walkers. A whole damn wall of 'em. Get up. Get Sophia and Andrea. Get to the cars."

Carol didn't need too much prompting. She was out of the tent and buttoning her pants immediately, despite the fact she had to be at least a little discombobulated thanks to having been in a deep sleep.

"Walkers?"

"A wall of 'em," Daryl said. "Hurry, OK? Get Andrea and Soph. Get in the cars."

"Where are you going?" Carol asked, clinging to him suddenly.

"I'ma warn 'em at the house. Run around here warnin' 'em, too. We gotta go. We gotta get off the farm. That many Walkers will just tear the place down. Flatten it. Go—quick—I'ma meet you there."

Luckily, Daryl didn't have to do much more prompting than that. He sent Carol running toward the RV, and he headed for the farmhouse—stopping by T-Dog's tent along the way to tell him to get up and get Jacqui moving.

111

Carol beat on the RV door before ripping it open and letting herself inside.

"Everybody up!" She yelled. "We have to go! Walkers! Enough they'll destroy the farm around us."

There was a clamor of confusion from all directions. For Carol, the confusion outside matched the confusion inside. Her whole body felt practically scrambled—it felt like a radio searching for a station where it couldn't find one. Nothing made sense, even though a part of herself that wasn't wholly plugged in seemed to understand everything. She was nauseous, and panicky, and all she wanted was to be somewhere else, safe with her family.

In the chaos, Carol wrapped her arms around her daughter. She reassured her that everything was going to be fine, even if she had a hard time feeling that and was swallowing down her own nerves. She reassured Andrea, too.

She heard Dale insisting they were safer in the RV, and that they would simply get it cranked and drive it right off the farm as it was. All of them would drive right off the farm—and everyone else would catch up.

"We can't leave Daryl," Carol had insisted—and, no, they wouldn't. Dale told her that.

But he couldn't get the RV cranked. There was something that sometimes went wrong. Something that sometimes required him to go outside the vehicle and do something with a screwdriver under the hood. Something where the screwdriver made the engine roar to life if all the tubes and things were connected. A lantern was lit to go outside and do just that.

Carol could hear her blood in her head. She could hear it rushing past her ears. She heard gunshots—distant, but maybe not that distant, really, since the sound of her heart, and her breathing, and her pulse seemed so loud.

"Who's shooting?" Glenn asked—the question that, maybe, they were all thinking.

There was yelling. Carol couldn't even place who was yelling.

"We have to go," Carol said, grabbing Sophia and pulling her with her. "We have to get to the cars. We have to go before they get here." She opened the door to the RV, and she rushed down the steps. Sophia, her doll clutched close to her chest, cried out for reassurance. "It's OK, baby," Carol assured her. "It's fine…we're just going to the car. We're going to get in the car."

"Where's Daddy?" Sophia asked.

"He's coming," Carol assured her, realizing instantly that Sophia had now come around to calling Daryl "Daddy" even when she was upset and overwhelmed. It was something she stored, immediately, to think about later—when there was time to think about anything.

"Andrea?!" Sophia barked.

"Right behind you!" Andrea called.

"Wait!" Dale called.

"We have to go," Carol yelled back. The noise was getting louder. The noise, now, was everywhere. It was overwhelming, and confusing. There was screaming, and scrambling, and shooting, and Walkers. They weren't coming. Not now. Now they were here. There was growling and darkness and, somewhere, unexplained fire—the flicker of flames and the smell of wood burning.

And fear.

"We have to go, Dale!" Andrea yelled. "Come on!"

"We'll need the RV," Dale called back. "I can get her cranked."

"We have to go!" Andrea insisted. Carol hesitated, not sure if she should run for the vehicles with Sophia, wait for Andrea, or veer off in the direction of the house—and the fire, growing rapidly, its origin unknown to Carol— in case Daryl needed her. "Dale! Please!"

"We'll need shelter on the road," Dale insisted. "Go! Get out of here. Glenn and I will catch up!"

"Come on! We have to go!" Andrea begged.

The Walkers seemed to be everywhere, but still they seemed to be somehow distant, too. Carol held tightly to Sophia—enough that she vaguely heard her daughter complaining that she was hurting her.

"Andrea!" Carol yelled. "We have to go!"

"Take this! In case you have to fight. We'll catch up."

Carol saw Dale handing Andrea something. Her brain told her, sometime later as it seemed to catch up with thoughts in the swirling madness around her, that it was a duffle bag of extra weapons that Dale had kept squirrelled away—lifted mostly off Rick and Shane.

Carol couldn't wait any longer. Her fear for her daughter overtook everything else. The Walkers were close now. They were too close. In the darkness, fingers touched her—wet fingers, it felt like. Cold, clammy fingers that reminded her of someone who had been in the bath too long and had wrinkled. She nearly threw up when her mind offered her the image of one of the Walkers they'd pulled out of the water not too long ago to try to keep the water supply clean, but she swallowed down the vomit that rose in her throat, and she pushed Sophia ahead of her in the direction of the vehicles. She prayed the keys were there—in the foot—just as they were supposed to be.

"Daddy! Andrea!" Sophia cried out as Carol pushed her toward the cars. "Mommy!"

"It's OK," Carol assured her. "It's OK, Sophia…"

Carol turned back a half a second to look behind her. She tried to see someone she knew in the darkness. The fire was spreading. It created an eerie light that seemed to create more shadows than illumination. It was hard to tell the living from the dead in the tricky, flickering darkness, but the Walkers seemed to be swarming.

"Mommy! Where's Daddy? Where's Andrea? We can't leave them…"

"I want you to go for the cars, baby," Carol said. "Go straight ahead. Go for the cars—as fast as you can, OK? Go straight for the cars—and you don't stop for anything. You get inside. Just like you did on the highway and we're all coming, OK? Be quiet, baby, and go straight for the cars. Mommy's coming. We're all coming."

In reality, Sophia could move a bit faster than Carol and, with her hands not holding Sophia, Carol was free to scramble for a weapon to try to beat back the Walkers that were threatening to close in on her baby girl. Carol ran her fingers along the ground, scratching for anything she could use. She found a branch. It would have to do, and she prayed it was solid enough. She wielded it like a bat.

"Get away from my daughter!" She called out, as soon as Sophia had slipped ahead of her. "Leave her alone! Get away from her!"

Her voice was doing what she hoped it would. It was drawing the growling, hungry corpses to her—away from Sophia. It was clearing the path for Sophia toward the cars. Carol couldn't clear it while she was holding Sophia, but she could clear it now.

"Mommy!" Sophia called.

"Be quiet, Sophia!" Carol yelled louder, drawing the Walkers' attention as best she could. "Be quiet, and run for the car, Baby! Mommy's coming! Get in the car! Get in the car now! Mommy's coming! Mommy loves you, Baby, and she's coming! Get in the car, Sophia!"

As she yelled at Sophia, she swung the bat and knocked back a couple of Walkers that reached for her but weren't prepared for the impact. Her weapon was a poor choice for self-defense, but her knife—well, it was somewhere. She'd lost it. It was in the tent, probably, and she was a fool for having forgotten it in the scramble, but at least Sophia would make it to the car. There were too many Walkers to fight with a stick, and Carol didn't need anyone to tell her that.

The gunshot surprised her when it rang out close to her. A Walker that had been closing in on her dropped. She could see someone beyond it. Their silhouette was made darker by the fire that was burning behind them and spreading rapidly—sure to swallow up anything the Walkers didn't destroy.

"Andrea?"

"Go!" Andrea barked. She started to run, too, and Carol didn't hesitate to follow her instructions. She ran for the cars, where everyone else was likely going since some vehicles were roaring to life and leaving—most of them, it seemed, were leaving—and she heard Andrea's gun roar again as she followed Carol.

Carol heard the click of the gun running out of bullets. The hollow sound of the hammer falling when there was nothing left to fire. Carol turned to look at Andrea. She saw the Walker go down as it lunged at Andrea—weaponless, now. She saw it take Andrea down to the ground with it, no doubt tearing out her throat as it went down—since Carol only barely heard a scream escape her. Carol meant to go back to help her, somehow, or at least to witness her death with her own eyes, but she was distracted by the sound of Sophia's voice as she called from a car—a car that was leaving—and her "Mommy!" echoed out loudly.

"Wait! Wait!" Carol yelled. "Please!"

She turned back to Andrea—torn—and realized that the Walker had taken her down, and she wasn't rising up from this. She was, Carol assumed, dead, and there was nothing she could do for her now.

And the Walkers were still coming.

Carol kept running, desperately. She could barely breathe. She felt like she might actively be dying. In addition to fear and exertion, her heart was breaking—absolutely shattering. Someone had driven off with Sophia, and she could only pray it was Daryl. She could only hope that they would be waiting for her on the road—that she could find the road in the darkness and in the swarm of Walkers—and that she could keep the fire behind her and outrun it. The headlights, now, had faded. Their light was quickly swallowed up in the swarm of bodies.

Andrea was dead, and that was enough to cleave Carol's heart in two.

But Carol, too, was alone—and she had nothing to help save herself. She'd lost even her stick, and she didn't dare to stop long enough to scramble for another that might not break when she wielded it like a club.

"Please!" She called out when she saw headlights again, even though she was certain that the driver would never hear her or see her in the chaos. "Please! Please!"

The headlights bobbed up and down as the vehicle ran over rough terrain. In the beam of light, Carol could see it knocking bodies out of the way—Walkers.

It was a truck. It was Daryl's truck.

"Come on! Hurry up! They're closin' up the damn way out!" Daryl yelled out the passenger-side window as he did his best to angle the truck so that Carol could reach it more quickly.

Carol ran for the truck. With every last bit of energy she had, she ran for it. Daryl leaned and flung open the door for her. She leapt in and pushed the Walker back that had been closer than she'd realized, before she slammed the door shut and quickly rolled up the window.

She sunk back into the seat as Daryl started driving—the rough trip over the field as they headed for the road nearly making her carsick.

"Sophia—somebody took Sophia," Carol stammered out.

"All the cars was headin' the same way," Daryl said. "Back to the highway, I reckon. We'll meet up with 'em there." His hand came across, found hers, and squeezed it for a half a second before taking the wheel again to guide them safely onto the road. He drove as fast as he dared, steering around the Walkers that stumbled into the headlights. "Don't worry," he said. "Don't worry. Everyone's headed the same way. We'll meet 'em on the highway. We'll get her back on the highway. Everyone'll be there."

"Not everyone," Carol said.

"What'cha mean?" Daryl asked.

"Daryl—Andrea's dead…" Carol said.

As soon as she said it, and heard it out there in the universe as a horrible, ugly, truth, she thought her heart might stop entirely in her chest.

"You sure?" Daryl asked.

"A Walker took her down," Carol said. "She wasn't moving. I wanted to go back, but…I got distracted. I let her down."

Daryl squeezed her leg. He patted it. He returned his hand to the steering wheel.

"You ain't done no such thing," Daryl said. "You hear me? You ain't. It was chaos. There weren't nothin' you could do." He was quiet for a moment. "You sure she was—all the way dead?"

"If she wasn't…" Carol said.

Daryl understood.

"There wasn't a thing you could do," Daryl said.

"We could go back for her," Carol said. "At least—so she doesn't walk?"

"Maybe," Daryl said. "But—it's too blocked right now. We'd never get out again. Right now? We gotta get to Sophia. Maybe when it's light. Maybe when the sun's out. We'll all come back. Look for her."

"If she's a Walker, Daryl, she won't be there," Carol said.

"Yeah," Daryl said. "Shit—she ain't gonna be there…"

"It's my fault," Carol said.

"Andrea was a big girl," Daryl said. "Hell—she was…she was hell. Weren't she? More'n that. She was—she was two hells. Not too damn many people could survive Merle Dixon as long as she did. Not the way she done it. She didn't need you babysittin' her ass, and she'da been the first to tell you. It ain't your fault. And—given the chance? You or her? Andrea wouldn'ta changed a single damn thing."

Carol scooted closer to Daryl. She leaned into him.

"I think that's what makes it that much harder," Carol admitted.

"I know," Daryl said. "Stay close to me. Close your eyes if you can. I'm right here. We'll be at the highway before long. We'll figure out—we'll figure out how we're gonna tell Sophia."